Are you doing your part to help keep gateway drugs to heroin out of the hands of youth and adults, and public water supplies?National Prescription Drug Take Back Day will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. next Saturday, April 26, at dozens of locations throughout the region, including police departments, municipal buildings, supermarkets, drug stores and more.

You can help by taking one or more of these easy steps:

• Let extended family members, friends, co-workers, church leaders including youth group coordinators, and others know about this event.

• Check with seniors and others to determine whether they have been storing unused medicines, oftentimes for years, because they haven’t known what to do with them.

•   Share this post with others, and also encourage them to Share with their friends and family.

• Go to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) website at www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_disposal/takeback and search the easy-to-use national database to identify the collection location closest to you or to your travels next Saturday.

• Download the free poster and other applicable information available on the DEA page and post to church, workplace or community bulletin boards. E-mail it to others for their uses …. and encourage them to pass it on.

• Secure unused drugs that may be in your home medicine cabinets or other locations so you don’t inadvertently become someone’s drug supplier.

Teens and adults often start with unused prescription drugs that become a gateway to heroin, local law enforcement officials say, with heroin use and overdose deaths having grown to epidemic proportions, particularly in the Philadelphia region, due to its high quality and low price.

Pharming parties, or pharm(aceutical) parties, also have become prevalent, with teens and lower ages randomly dumping prescription drugs into containers at get-togethers and ingesting whatever is pulled out. Lethal potential increases when pills are consumed with alcohol, officials say.

As teens become drug dependent, prescription medicines become more expensive due to home sources drying up and users turn to heroin, reports indicate, with a small bag being available for only a few dollars.

In addition, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has advised that traces of drugs are being found in municipal water supplies, attributable to improper disposal of unused prescription drugs through flushing in sinks and toilets.

Don’t wait. Take action now.

If you already have, consider a followup reminder to those you know. Working together can help save lives.