The California Police Department hosted its annual prescription drug take-back event on Saturday.
The event provided the opportunity for those with leftover or expired prescription drugs the ability to turn them in to the proper authorities.
Sponsored by the DEA, the CPD has been working closely with the organization to promote its advertised drug take-back campaign for several years.
According to the department, many people might not know what to do with residual medicine. To assist their community, officers said they want to offer an alternative to those who might be overwhelmed by another's controlled prescriptions.
"It's a service to all the citizens in the city," CPD captain Ralph Parris said. "We do have a lot of elderly citizens or widows and widowers whose loved ones have passed away and have accumulated a lot of medications. They don't really know where to take it, so we offer this service."
After the drugs are dropped off at the department, they are bagged, sealed and disposed of properly. Privacy is key, Parris said, and the department wants citizens to know these medications will be kept in a secure environment.
"They will be able to bring it here rather than just disposing of it and throwing it away, which can be dangerous to the environment," Parris said.
Each year, the drug take-back event proves to be very beneficial to the California community. Typically, the event brings in 20-30 people ready to dispose of their extra medicine, with locals filling up two to three bags of prescriptions per person.
Parris said the CPD is very grateful to have the community reach out to them during this time. However, Parris also wants citizens to know this is mainly for bottled medication. Liquids and bio-hazardous sharps such as needles are not recommended.
While the event has done well every year, Parris wants the California community to know that this is not the only opportunity for the public to turn in medications.
"We operate every day of the year," Parris said. "The community is more than welcome to bring their medications here. We do have a bin inside our police department and we would like people to know that. This is just a more advertised event once a year that we provide, but we would like everyone to know that they're more than welcome to bring in their medications."