■ Pharmaceuticals to be collected for proper disposal on Saturday

Unwanted and out-of-date prescriptions can be misused, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and old drugs can cause contamination to the environment if they’re tossed into the trash or flushed down a toilet.

Benicia residents can get expired or unwanted drugs safely out of circulation Saturday through the local Prescription Drug Take-Back Day at Benicia Police Department, 200 East L St., said Patti Baron, the department’s volunteer coordinator.

The local police department is one of several Solano County agencies where people can drop off drugs in pill, cream and liquid form. The event is organized nationally by the DEA.

Also participating are Dixon police, Rio Vista police, Solano County Sheriff’s-Coroner’s Office, Suisun City police, Travis Air Force Base Pharmacy, Vacaville police and Vallejo police.

Those agencies will accept medications that were intended for diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease in either humans or animals, whether obtained by prescription or purchased over the counter.

They’ll also accept nutritional supplements that no longer are wanted or are past their expiration date. No needles, or “sharps,” will be accepted at this particular take-back day.

Those who want to get rid of old medications should seal any liquids and creams, and should remove any personal information from pill, cream or liquid containers.

The most recent take-back day was Oct. 26, 2013, when across the country more than 647,000 pounds of prescription drugs were deposited at more than 4,100 sites operated by the DEA and thousands of state and local law enforcement agencies.

Locally, Benicia police collected 185 pounds of drugs that day from Benicia and Vallejo residents, Lt. Frank Hartig said.

“We had 139 Benicia residents and nine Vallejo residents bring in a combined 185 pounds of unwanted prescription drugs,” Hartig said.

Karl Nichols, public information officer and group supervisor of the San Francisco Field Division of the U.S. Department of Justice financial investigations team, said 19 tons of drugs were collected at 227 sites last October.

He said a 2012 national survey on drug use and health indicated almost twice as many Americans, 6.8 million, abuse prescription drugs than those who abuse cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin and inhalants combined.

Information provided by the DEA supports Nichols’s statement, and indicates that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family members and friends, or are taken from home medicine cabinets.

However, throwing the drugs away in the trash and flushing them down the toilet have become a threat to the environment and public health, the agency noted.

To date, the national drug take-back effort has removed and safely disposed of more than 3.4 million pounds of pills from homes, according to figures provided by the DEA.

The agency is in the middle of revising the Safe and Responsible Drug Disposal Act of 2010 that modified the Controlled Substances Act so that a patient, family member or pet owner could dispose of medicines by giving them to those agencies the U.S. attorney general has authorized to accept them.

In addition, the act lets the attorney general allow long-term care operators to dispose of their clients’ medications.

Those interested in disposing of drugs during Prescription Drug Take-Back Day may drop them at Benicia Police Department, 200 East L St., from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.