Minutes 09-06-2022 Business Meeting

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33 Commissioner Hamilton said that it is also important to understand the contributing factors of those most impacted. Commissioner Richards said this is a health problem that has consequences for law enforcement. She asked what the efforts are focused on most. She noted the task force is very heavily weighted towards law enforcement. Quintana Stewart said that there is a history of law enforcement interaction on the task force. She said that it has been related to their reach in the community and their experience administering the reversal rather than on the criminal side. She said that many times they are the first to show up on scene and are able to administer NARCAN to reverse the overdose. Chair Price said the focus here is law enforcement in the role as first responders. She said they are working to keep mental illness out of detention centers but it is very important to have the law enforcement as first responders. She said that when this first started, one of the lead departments was libraries because they were often coming in contact with overdoses in libraries. PUBLIC COMMENT: Caroline Pruitt said she was present on behalf of Orange Partnership. She asked the Board to consider placing their efforts in prevention. She said that prevention efforts save money on overdose treatment later on. She said that treatment is crucial, but the further upstream dollars are placed, the less that will have to be spent on the back end. She said that it is important to get youth perspective on advisory committee. Gayane Chambless said that this has been a passion since 2008 and they have officially been working on it since 2011. She said then there was not a single medicine drop site. She said that the Drop Your Meds program was born out of Orange County and Orange Partnership. She said she is surprised about Option A because option B is what was recommended by the advisory council. She said that she strongly suggests prevention be included. She said that in 2015, fentanyl was fifth leading cause of death with alcohol as number six. She said that now, fentanyl is number one and alcohol is number three. She said those statistics are specific to North Carolina. She said that medicines are in the top ten of deaths and that two of the medicines are not included in the reporting system and this is a concern. She said that about 80% of overdose deaths involve two or more, or poly-substance use. She said they need to work on primary prevention. She asked what will we do to prevent the future onset of opioid use disorders. She said those appointed will need to be attuned to the ever-evolving landscape of the opioid epidemic. Commissioner Bedford asked if early prevention in Option A could be interpreted to include prevention. Quintana Stewart said that is the way she understood it and read it. Commissioner Bedford said she supports Option A and including prevention. She asked to discuss the charge. She said that it is important to match composition of the task force to the charge. She said that she does have a concern with 25% being focused on law enforcement. She said she is not seeing the social needs like housing and other direct service work represented. She said she does not know a lot about this epidemic, but there should be a racial equity approach so maybe there could be space for one of the equity officers. She asked if would be important to reframe the composition to focus on a social medical concern and then the group can invite any experts that they need. Chair Price said Option B looks more amenable to what the county needs to do at this point. She said they have already done a lot of first part of that. She said that she is in disagreement about pushing law enforcement out of the picture because they deal with it so closely. She said they need to have law enforcement participate so they can begin to look at