People cleaned out their medicine cabinets for National Prescription Drug Take Back Day"last Saturday.

Old and unused prescription drugs are finding their way into the wrong hands.  That's why a national effort to dispose of them properly is making streets safer and educating people about prescription drug abuse.  The Coon Rapids Police Department collected several boxes of pills during the first hour of the event.

"With the problems with Opioid addiction and just the misuse and mishandling of prescription medication, getting these pills off of the street destroyed is absolutely saving lives, saving accidental overdoses really from people dealing it as drugs to other people who don’t belong taking it," says Jason Boersma of the Coon Rapids Police Department.

The National Take Back Day happens twice a year.  Last fall, 456 tons of unwanted prescriptions were collected nationally.