EPHRATA - Prescription drugs can pose a hazard if they fall into the hands of people other than the patient. But even such an obvious fact presents a dilemma, because there are plenty of medicine cabinets with orphan prescription bottles.

Maybe the medication isn't needed anymore but there are a few pills left. Maybe the patient passed away, and the bottles are just sitting there because no one knows what to do with them.

Throwing prescriptions away is a bad idea because kids and pets can find them, according to Theresa Adkinson, of the Grant County Health District. Flushing prescription drugs means sending them to municipal water systems not designed to handle them.

That's the problem the Medicine Take-Back program is designed to address.

Grant County Health District employees highlighted the takeback program as part of National Poison Prevention Week, held each year in March. But the potential for accidental poisonings with medicines around the house lasts all year. "It is a year-round concern, said Maria Vargas, coordinator of Safe Kids Grant County.

The take-back program is operated by the Moses Lake and Ephrata police departments in conjunction with the Grant County Health District. It's actually pretty simple, said Logan Nelson, the evidence manager for the Ephrata Police Department.

"We have a 24-hour drop box outside of our department (office)," Nelson said. Officers empty it regularly, he said, and the medicine is placed in the department's evidence vault until it can be taken to Spokane and burned. "It's really kind of a simple process," Nelson said.

Liquid meds and syringes aren't accepted, he said.

The Ephrata PD collected more than 225 pounds of medicine in 2012, said Theresa Adkinson, public information officer for the Grant County Health District. The Moses Lake PD installed a box in July 2012, and collected about 80 pounds in three months, Adkinson said.

Parents should always store medicines where small children can't get them, and a locked door on the medicine cabinet discourages tweens and teens who might want to experiment, she said. Parents should also monitor any prescription medicine bottles to ensure no pills are missing, she said, and ask people who teens visit (like grandparents) to do the same.

Between 2005 and 2009, the last statistics available, 11 children in Grant County age 14 and younger had to be hospitalized for two days or more because they had taken prescription, over the counter or illegal drugs, Adkinson said. The national poison control center maintains poison control hotlines, 1-800-222-1222 in case of an emergency, Adkinson said.