Vicksburg and Warren County residents with expired or unused prescriptions can take them to the Vicksburg Commons, formerly the Outlets of Vicksburg, on Saturday and give them to Warren County Sheriff’s deputies who will see that they are properly destroyed.

The Warren County Sheriff’s Office, like other local law enforcement agencies, is participating in Project Takeback, a joint effort between the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and local agencies to collect and destroy unused and expired drugs, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

The sheriff’s office, he said, has participated in the program since its inception more than 20 years ago.

“And we will continue this year,” he said. “We will be set up as we have been for over 20 years at the outlet mall with one of our mobile command posts and people are encouraged to bring any and all unused prescription drugs.

“There are no questions asked; you just pull up,” Pace added. “My detectives will take them, package them, and the DEA will pick them up and they will be destroyed in an ecologically friendly incinerator.”

The Vicksburg Police Department will also have a collection site at Walgreens, 3341 Halls Ferry Road.

Both events will take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Pace said most young people most frequently come in contact with prescription drugs in the home and may be illegally using drugs that they find in their own family’s medicine cabinet.

“Unused prescriptions should never be just left in the home,” he said. “If the prescriptions are not being used or if they’ve expired, they should be thrown away.”