POSTED: Saturday, September 12, 2009 --- 2:00 p.m.

Prescription drugs are ruining lives, hurting our kids and leaving police without many options.

Now a Reedsburg teenager is stepping in where adults have failed.

Quite literally, these are poison pills. Prescription drugs, no longer needed, laying around and too often in the wrong hands.

Reedsburg Police Chief Tim Becker says, "You have it sometimes in the schools. You have it sometimes in the streets. It's an issue we're aware of that we really needed to address."

According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America 1 in 5 teens has abused a prescription pain medication, stimulant or tranquilizer. It's an issue this teen is confronting head on.

At only 14, Jordyn Schara brought in police, a local pharmacist and other volunteers to organize this pill disposal day.

Schara says, "It's a huge, huge problem and if we could have one person just bring in one bottle of pills it's making America safer."

She's getting a lot more than that. If you need any proof as to how big a problem this really is ... garbage bags full of pills are only the beginning.

Schara says, "You hear about it. You definitely hear about it in between classes and stuff about people going to parties and taking all the medication they can find in their parents and grandparents cabinets, mixing it all together and seeing how high they can get."

The problem is there aren't a whole lot of ways to safely get rid of these drugs. It is a problem one motivated teen is determined to change one bottle at a time.

Schara says she's hoping to make the pill collections regular events in Reedsburg and wants the idea to catch on across the country.