Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Well, hello there. It's another week of just say somethings podcast. We hope you've enjoyed our podcast up to now and that we continue to bring you exciting and informative conversations at just say something. So today I have with us Mike Young, who is our program manager for our power collective. So, Mike, welcome.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: And so, power collective is new, and so we receive South Carolina Opioid Recovery fund money. And so, Greenville County Sheriff's office rise prevention and just say something. Came together with Safe Rx to provide lockable prescription bottles for our community at no charge. And then those of us on the program side have been busy increasing, building our capacity to provide more prevention and education to our communities. And so with that, Mike, tell us about some of the activities and things that you've already been included in.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so we've done several outreach events, which are these multi vendor kind of education tables that are set up, and we've been one of them meeting the families that come to these events. And they're usually very kid friendly. They have all sorts of things to get families together and spend time together.
Cotton candy and bounce houses and. And snacks and things like that. But we sit at the table and we say hello to the families as they walk in, and they usually get really interested by the locking pill bottle. Just because it is such a. Such a neat kind of design and it really catches your attention, people want to know more about it. So we've just been educating them on that. And then, of course, the importance of locking medicine and the impact of the opioid crisis and all the kind of statistics that are happening right now and how this combats that.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Right, right. So in our initial funding from scorf, South Carolina opioid Recovery Fund, we've had in there that we would distribute 40,000 of the lockable prescription bottles. There are two sizes, and there are two kind. There's those that come preset with a four digit code, and then there are those that come that we can set it to whatever four digit code the individual wants it to be. What we also know is that if we. When we hand out these 40,000 lockable prescription bottles, then we will keep 2.2 million pills from being pilfered. Just think about that for a minute. 2.2 million pills being pilfered. So those of you that don't think it can happen to you, guess what?
It's probably happening to you. And then that can give us an economic impact of just over $29 million. So it. It's just mind boggling. So those are, you know, if we look at how we can save our community money, prevention is key. If we can keep 2.2 million pills from being pilfered, we will have an economic impact of our community of just over $29 million. So, yeah, that.
The first time I read that third party research, I'm like, oh, wow, that is just crazy.
So what do you think? It's important for us to be sharing with the community about the power collective?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: One of the statistics that I found really alarming when I. When I got into this work was that 70. 70% of teen misuse is sourced from pilfering. So it goes from there into other habits. And I thought that was really interesting, knowing that this is the beginning, like, we're talking about prevention. So this is really preventing a lot more than just pills, too. Like, this is. This is curbing a habit from becoming something more grave, you know, because it talks about up to 80% of heroin users started with a pilfering habit. So knowing that we're having that kind of an impact with something that prevents this kind of pills getting into people's hands is very, very powerful. But other than that particular aspect of the power collective, I feel like we have this really all around kind of approach when it comes to supporting individuals at the various stages of their.
Their journey in this. In this process, the recovery, the. Because we have mental health, we have hospitals. We have hospitals, but also local clinics, you know, so affordable care. And then also the sheriff's department and prevention organizations like Rise. So it's like this wrap around support network that is available for or anybody that's going through or have families that are going through these issues. So as an entity, I feel like it's a very solid resource when it comes to supporting the community and something.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: That people are parents.
If your kids vape. I was just at the South Carolina governor's opioid summit, and they had a speaker there, the pharmacist, that showed the pipeline from vaping to opioids.
And so there's a pathway there, and so we'll have more information coming out about that. But again, you don't think it can ever happen to you. You don't ever think it could happen to your child, but it can.
I know it's, you know, we don't want to hear that because we don't think little Johnny or Susie or Adam or whoever will do something like that. But we always go back to say, would you think any of your child's friends would do something like that? And if you think your child's friends will. You need to think again about your child.
So how can people get these bottles?
[00:07:02] Speaker B: They can get them directly from us on the website. You can fill out a form where you can. The power collective website, there's a form you could fill out. We'll send them to you.
Come to any of the events that we're going to be holding. That's another place you can come meet us. You can come into the office, and we're just giving them away because we know that they're useful and they're very impactful. So just reach out to us and we'll find a way.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: All right? And so if you're an individual and you would like to get a bottle, feel free. If you're in Greenville or in the upstate, and you're in Greenville for whatever reason, you can come by our office. We are located at 850 South Pleasantburg Drive, suite 202. So come around front, use the stairs on the right, and we're at the top. But you're more than welcome to come in and get bottles. You just walk in and say, I want to get some of your safe rx bottles. And. And we will make sure that we fulfill that for you.
If you're an organization and you want more for an event, or if you're an employer and you would like to have these for your employees, just know that we can make them available to you for free.
So with the power collective, we have our prevention, we have our education, awareness, but also with the safe Rx bottles, it gets us in to harm reduction, which probably ten years ago, people in the prevention field is like, oh, no.
But for us to be that conduit of resources for our community, harm reduction is another piece of it. And so there's more to come for that.
So what else would you like to share with about the power collective?
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Just that you're going to start seeing it everywhere. I'm excited to see the expansion that we're hoping to get funding for.
You might start seeing billboards, movie theater previews, just in general, this logo and this name is going to start getting all over South Carolina. I'm excited to be part of that.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: All right, well, it's the power collective. And if you want to go to our power collective website, you can go to powercollectivesc.com. our partners are listed there. And as we continue to grow this opportunity to educate our community about the dangers of opioids, we'll have more and more information there. So thank you again for listening this week, and I look forward to talking with you and seeing you next week. Thanks.