Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution in support of the Drug Enforcement Agency's semi-annual national prescription drug take back events and supporting the availability and use of prescription drug drop-boxes, in multiple languages, across the City.
Okay. We're going to do quickly, we're going to do item 26 and then we're doing the rest of the public comment here. Item 26 Important. Communication from Councilman Austin Councilmember Supernova Councilman Andrews. Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution in support of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Semiannual national prescription drug takeback events. Mr. Councilman Austin. Nicholas, thank you. Can we get a two minute break to allow. Them to clear out, sir? Okay. We're going to take a one minute break. All right. They me. They don't know when. I'm going to read to folks. Pull out so we can hear. You know, because. I'm not doing that. That's ridiculous. I did kill her. Okay, guys, I need everyone that is. That's talking to. Please go outside because we have to keep going with the meeting. Shush. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So we're hearing the order is we're hearing item 26, which is a short item, and then we're doing public comment and then the rest of the agenda, we have another 15 items after that. So item 26, Councilman Austin, then we're going to public comment. Item 26. You're on. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to, first of all, thank Councilmember Andrews and Councilmember Supernova for signing onto this resolution to support the safe disposal of prescription drugs. This issue has been picking up momentum over the years. In 2014, President Obama announced new regulations that created a convenient legal avenues for safe, environmentally friendly disposal of unneeded prescription drugs. With the new regulations, neighborhood pharmacies and others were able to set up disposal locations. These regulations were in direct response to curb the opioid epidemic, which claims more lives in each year in America than motor vehicle crashes. Walgreens announced a few days ago that they are adding 900 drug disposal kiosks to their stores, and CVS plans to install 750 kiosks by June of this year. The opioid epidemic has a direct connection with homelessness in our community. My office receives phone calls and emails daily about issues and many of the individuals experiencing homelessness in Long Beach who are addicted to opioids. Drug disposal programs are one way to help stem the growing opioid crisis and reduce the number of drugs in our community. On Saturday, April 28th, 2018, Lombard PD, in conjunction with Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, is hosting a take back pharmacy event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 208 Atlantic Avenue. I'm sorry, 2801 Atlantic Avenue. And the event collects and expires unused pharmaceutical drugs. I encourage everyone to gather their medicine cabinet and expired drugs and collect them and attend this event. I'd also like to take a few people who are here today, and I know we'll hear from the Cambodian Association of America, Asian American Drug Abuse Program and the South Bay Communities Creating Change. Who approached me a few months ago to bring this item forward, and who are also leading the public awareness campaign to safely dispose of prescription drugs through increasingly increasing the availability of prescription drug drop boxes in multiple languages, community education, and promoting prescription drug takeback events. I want to thank you for being here, and I want to ask my colleagues for your unanimous support on this very important issue. Thank you. Councilmember Skinner. I just like to thank my colleague, Councilman Al Austin, for bringing this item forward. I'm honored to support it with him, and I'm very enthusiastic in that support. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Councilmember Price. Thank you. I, too, want to thank Councilman Austin for bringing this forward. As I know you guys have heard me talk about repeatedly, prescription addiction and opioid addiction is a huge problem right now. Most of the homeless individuals in my district are addicted to some sort of a substance, mostly heroin and of course, methamphetamine. But a lot of the heroin abuse that we're seeing is coming from prescription drug use that's leading to heroin use. And so I'm very grateful that you're bringing this any awareness that we can raise in regards to people getting rid of prescription drugs that they're not no longer needing and raising awareness is is something that I welcome . So thank you. Thank you. As any public comment on this item, please come forward. You know. Now would be the time. Hi, guys. My name is Latoya marshall again. Yes, I have comments to it. Yeah, I got a thing to get rid of our expired prescription drugs. How do we get rid of. We are addicted to money. Yeah, I sit there. Yeah. Companies council meetings. Just sit there and decide what parts of the agenda y'all gonna jump from. Everything else supposed to be a line, which I disrespect the line. If I put in a car for a ten minute or, you know, the cards that come out ten persons to have a, you know. A word. Of it, I shouldn't have to wait 6 hours or 8 hours to sit there and say my little 2 minutes that you guys are supposed to grant me, or y'all sit there and ignore people where they get tired. And a 77 year old woman had to leave because of the simple fact you guys didn't even give her her 2 minutes that she requested. I go through this with you guys. Every time I come up here, I have questions for Dee Andrews. I spit out questionnaires to Alison King for an A housing authority. Everything else that you guys want to sit there and just act like it's okay to. Just jump the. Agenda, say, forget the people that did try to come here early and ask for 2 minutes from you guys. And then you have bring out this whole night where you do public speaking, where ten people, 20 people come up and make their comments. But people that sit there and sign these cards and say that, okay, yeah, we're going to give you a minute to speak. Don't do it. I'm six months pregnant. Been here for how long? I'm not being accommodating in any way, shape or form. And guess what? The only thing you could tell me is if you don't like it, go ahead and leave, and then my voice don't get hurt. Ah, my question is, don't get answered or I don't get the help that I ask for from you guys. I've been out here for over a year. I'm pregnant again. I'm still asking for questions, I'm still asking for help and I'm still not getting it. And you still sit there and ignore people, everything else but you, about greed, about money. So you talking about homeless people being addicted to heroin, opium. Y'all are addicted to money so much that's already blind, y'all, where y'all don't do nothing for the public. But you always say to the public, to the public it's a 13 years they help with pollution are to get rid of Styrofoam or whatever 13 years. Y'all need to really do something because you're embarrassing to this community, to this city, trying to act like y'all making changes when y'all don't do nothing but change your clothes and your wallet because they keep getting fatter. And I still didn't get my 2 minutes to talk about my issues that I. Have next speaker, please. Yes. Hi. Good evening, mayors. Give me any give me good evening concerns my members I'm here since 345 awaiting I signed my card and I spoke with Jessie and I spoke with money. Respectfully, you speak on this item. Okay. So we'll get back in just a moment. Just a moment. If you hear from public comment, that's next. If you're on this list and you sign the card, that is next. I'm being right now we're speaking about the practice prescription drugs. Is that the issue you here to speak on? Do you want to speak to next. Is not only prescription drugs. Okay. So if that's the case, you're off topic. You'd be up next. We're going to pull up. Just sit right up front. You're going to be up next on where. Is this step in a light? This is a different item. There's a process. So you'll be up next. Thank you. This is public comment specifically for item number 26 on prescription drugs. Thanks. Good evening. Honorable vice mayors and honorable. Council members and Ireland boss city. Staff. My name is 20. I'm a district. Constituent. I'm currently working. With a Cambodian association America. And we collaborated with. Nonprofit agency, a group of them, some of them named SBC three. Stand for a South Bay Community Creating Change and DAP Asian American Service Program. And then thank you that you let me to have the opportunity to speak in front of you tonight about the prescription drug takeback three solution. And I would like to point out eight important points that are listed here that are one is the growing access of. Prescription drug in our community. Has created an epidemic in. The series of our. Survey. Two Driving under. The influence of prescription drug medications. Have created another layer of risk for pedestrians and law. Enforcement. Three black, Latino and multiple races ethnicity. Populations this proportionately. Affected by the. Prescription. Drug. Epidemic. Four It. Is very important we. Monitor. Safe disposal of and use and unwanted. Prescription medication. Five Safe deposit. Disposal is paramount in. Reducing the accessibility. Of and use and unwanted medication. Ending up in the. Hands of our youth. Six The number of. Visit for the overdoses has doubled for. Emergency visits in the past year. Seven opiate meds, painkillers, more most commonly abuse prescription drugs. And I'm thank you very much for your. Time and listening to me and for your support and your kind approval and recognition. Of these propositions to recognize and. Allow us to have this prescription drug. Takeback. Initiative in our. City. Thank you very much. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Next speaker police. Good evening. I'm by mayor and the Syrian government. Thank you so much for your time and your support. My name is only Priem and I'm working for Cambodian Association of America and MRSA and District nine. And I want to point out, this prescription drug crisis is impacting our homes, our school and our community. The abandonment of prescription drugs, particularly opiate medications, has led to a widespread misuse and addiction, notably among young adults. Recent survey data released from L.A. County Department of Public Health identified that Los Angeles survey. 21% of survey participants have missed prescription medications. The overall average and natural misuse of a prescription drug is 24 years old. However, for Latino, the average age is 18 years. For African-American, it's 20 years. Other key issues that relate to prescription drug crisis are related. Accident took over those drug poison and monitor medication and lead to easy access in the home. And in this proposal, unjust medication negatively impact our environment. On Saturday, April 28, 1928, the Long Beach Police Department, in conjunction with Langley Memorial Hospital, is hosting the National Take Back Pharmacy event. This event will support our local community organization and community volunteers to take back event, recollect and use an and pump pharmacy drug that can be abused by youth and harmful to waterways if not private. This post. We are asking the City Council to publicly declare and support through this resolution about promote prevention, through education, about take back medication, proper storage and proper disposal by responsible use. We thank you so much for your support. With national take back days the most properly through the proactive resolution, we anticipate to increase in community engagement with prescription drug prevention in Long Beach. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terry. Thank you. Speaker, please. Her band. My name is Silken and I am one of the co-founders of Long. Beach Environmental Alliance and also a community leader for the Cambodian Association of America. I have asked my friends here to wear green. Today I am taking an environmental stance on this topic. So here before you are some leaders that we collected during our beach cleanups, we probably find like. A couple. In one hour of our beach cleanup. So imagine if we. Cleaned up for. Hours and how much we were fine and people walk barefoot. I also brought this this bag of pills that are overdue. From the community. And right now, I'm the drop box. So I'm waiting until April two to drop this off. But people can also pool their unused. Prescription. Pills and drugs and some or some salts. To our beach cleanup. April 22nd, the Sun Alamitos Beach from 10 to 30. And so, again, I'm here with. CAA and Asian American Drug. Abuse Program. So they both. Recently surveyed 112. Residents of Long Beach. So 47%, 47.4% out of 55 surveys threw their unused, unexpired drugs into the trash. So imagine what will happen. Sorry when you start over. So when we talk about how pills work. So think about how. Fast acting. Medication is when it's. Ingest into your body. See. Excuse me. Excuse me. In the audience. If we could just keep it down, please. In the back, in the salmon shirt. Thank you. Thank you. Interesting. Thank you. So just imagine how pills. Medication work within our bodies. It's fast acting and is and absorbs in the bloodstream. So an environmental perspective. Think about how. How the water water. Bodies that we have on our planet. Farm streams, rivers, lakes, oceans. And how fast the medication would be. Released when they're put into the water. So it probably releases immediately when it touches the water. So if we have a drug Dropbox and we're drug takeback events. Imagine how much animals, plants and even. Ultimately saving our own butts. In regards to our health. Also. This will improve our soil and water quality. Soil, soil and water. Well, you've met your 30 or three minute shoemaker talking. If you want to complete your sentence. Just read it. Okay. So water and soil and water is vital for all life. We need. Those two resources to. Grow food. All right, food is life. What is life? What is life? Outstanding. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Name is John Kendrick with the Low Mic Environmental Alliance. And I'm also with the Cambodian American Association, the Coalition for Substance Abuse. And I have here some of the souvenirs that I collect off the beach each day. Our bus stops, our parks and our alleys in honor of blue light stations. These are marijuana bottles that I'm finding every day on a daily basis. And sometimes I find I find marijuana still in children and picking them up. And sometimes they mix in these bottles. Not just marijuana, but other drugs with them. Some of these bottles I've had for over a year. But yet, though, when you get close to it, it smells just like I just picked it up today. And when the city sun does on the beach, they don't do a good job. They cut them up into sharp edges. So now they're becoming a hazard on the beach. Now, with everything else on there. So, you know, this is now becoming the new thing. So if you're going to have marijuana in Long Beach, we need to find a way to do it right where the right people get it for medical use. And those that's not using it is not affected by it. Because I've seen people on the bus sitting in the back with marijuana, mixing it with other things on the bus, public bus. And says Long Beach no longer use public mean, use school busses no more. All our schoolchildren have the right Long Beach transit and there are supposed it is in smaller children. So this is now also need to be included into the drug take back. So I ask you please revise what we're doing with. And not sit there and wait until we start having problems, then try to fix something afterwards. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Councilman Austin, thank you. And I just wanted. To just acknowledge the the folks who who came out and spoke on this issue. I want to thank you for your patience and staying with us this evening and speaking on this very important issue. And again, I would ask my my colleagues for your support on this important resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. I have to apologize for I thought I took my name. Off the list earlier. So I'm still talking right now. But earlier. When I stepped out, I want to apologize. For that. But I just wanted to say. Councilmember Austin, how much I appreciate this item. You guys know my mom's history, so let our office know how we can help in future events. Thank you. Thank you. Members, please cast your vote. Richardson. Motion carries. I'm an I. Thank you. So now we're going to go on to public comment. So I see ten speakers lined up here, but I'm pretty sure majority of them are gone. So I'm going to read through the list. And if you could start making your way to the front, we can we can move through this.