Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day and the Perry Police Department encourages everyone to take advantage of this opportunity.

Chief Eric Vaughn says there are several benefits to drug take back days.

“A lot of times we have prescriptions that we’ve had for one illness or the other, and they just kind of sit around the house.  It’s good to get rid of those because a lot of times they are expired and they’re not going to provide the benefits they once did, but also it keeps it out of the hands of people that might misuse it or people that do have an abuse problem, so you can get rid of those safely” says Vaughn.

And says prescription drug abuse has been on the rise in the last few years.

“But I think medication, and the types of medications that are out there have increased too.  We just have more and more types of medications that are available to people.  A lot of times you’ll take a medication and you’ll never use it all, for example you get teeth pulled and you get some hydrocodone or something like that and you take two or three of them and you still have 20 or 30 left so they’re just available to people and easily accessible a lot of times.”

Residents can drop off their unused, unwanted and expired prescription drugs and over the counter medications no questions asked on Saturday from 10am to 2pm in the public safety building parking lot.

The drugs will then be picked up by the Drug Enforcement Administration and incinerated.

Anyone with questions can call the Perry Police Department at 465-466.