"She said to me, ‘Agent Collier, now I understand,’" Collier said.

Matt Rainey/The Star-LedgerNew Jersey authorities are hosting a program where parents can drop off unused prescription drugs in their medicine cabinet. Experts say that a growing number of teens are going to their parents' medicine cabinets to get high.

The woman said her daughter had never had a particularly close relationship with her grandmother, but started visiting regularly in the last months of the dying woman’s life when she was being heavily medicated.

During those visits, Collier said, the young girl was raiding her grandmother’s trove of powerful painkillers and using the medication to get high.

"And the access point for that was the medicine cabinet," Collier said.

Each year, experts say, a growing number of teenagers quietly turn to a seemingly unlikely source to score drugs — their parents’ medicine cabinets.

To combat the growing problem, more than 400 police departments and other law enforcement agencies throughout New Jersey are holding a program Saturday — the first of its kind in the nation — inviting residents to scour their medicine chests for unused, unwanted prescription and over-the-counter drugs and drop them off for disposal.

More information about the program, along with a list of participating law enforcement agencies and drop-off points can be found at www.operationmedicinecabinetnj.com.

"With Operation Medicine Cabinet, we are calling on residents to see their medicine cabinets through new eyes — as an access point for potential misuse and abuse of over-the-counter and prescription medicine by young people," said Angelo Valente, executive director of the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, which is co-sponsoring the effort with the DEA and state Attorney General’s Office.

Prescription pain relievers have become more accessible to most young people than beer, according to a recent survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The survey also found that for a majority of teens, the most common way to find those pills is to close their parents’ bathroom door and rummage amid Band Aids and shaving lotion for the telltale orange bottles with the white caps.

"Parents with teenagers put locks on their liquor cabinets, but most of them don’t lock their medicine cabinets," said Gerard P. McAleer, head of DEA’s New Jersey division.

About 20 percent of teenagers admit using prescription drugs without a prescription, said Sean Clarkin, director of strategy at Partnership for a Drug Free America. Sometimes they grab one of mom’s pain killers after hurting their knee at soccer practice. But too often, he said, they are looking to dull their senses with a euphoric, and potentially dangerous, buzz.

Every day, 2,500 youngsters ages 12 to 17 abuse a pain reliever for the very first time and more teens abuse prescription drugs than any illicit drug except Marijuana, according to the Partnership for a Drug Free America. In 2006, more than 2 million young people ages 12 to 17 reported abusing prescription drugs.

New Jersey middle school students abuse prescription drugs more than twice as much as Cocaine and Ecstasy, according to a 2007 survey by the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey.

What’s even more disturbing, Valente said, is that a survey of parents of middle schoolers this year showed almost half admit knowing little or nothing about prescription drug abuse.

According to a 2007 report by the national Study of Drug Use and Health, 70 percent of people who abuse prescription pain relievers say they got them from friends or relatives.

Because these drugs are so readily available — and are prescribed by a doctor — many teens believe they are a safe way to get high.

"We know there is a myth out there that this is harmless experimentation because it’s prescribed by a doctor," Valente said.

Sponsors of Saturday’s program, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., say they hope it will become a model for other states.

The DEA’s Collier said the collected drugs will be incinerated. He said residents are urged to bring the drugs to dropoff sites rather than just disposing of them down toilets because of environmental concerns. Drugs thrown out in the garbage, he said, can find their way into the hands of individuals who ferret through the trash of those they know to be sick and on medication.