Area Council - Regular Meeting

There's a lot of substance abuse in the area. Everybody's addicted to something that takes the pain away. Some people it's drugs, some people it's alcohol.

I think our community is highly stigmatized, Lake County in general. People think that it's low income. Well, I mean, it is low income. We have a high poverty rate here. So my name is Richie Okino. I am a programs coordinator for prevention and early intervention services here at Lake County Behavioral Health Services. I've been living in Lake County since 2005. I have three children, all within the school districts of Kanocti. At my job, on the day-to-day basis, I actually oversee a couple different programs in the school systems. One is, we call it universal prevention, where I go into ninth graders' classes or high school classes, depending on the school, essentially providing information to youth and allowing them to take that information and make better informed decisions.

I watched three people walk into the smoke shop that day and walk out and they were on 14.

And I don't doubt that. But another one is that guy that drops it off everywhere.

You smoke shop here in Lower Lake, that's who sells them without an ID.

Oh, man, look at him dropping full names and stuff.

All right.

Hey, that's right.

You should report that person.

I would say... The high school kids are more outlandish with their substance use. They talk about it more. It's out there.

What does being more outlandish look like?

Walking up to me and saying, Hey, Richie, I just hit that yard today. Who's got that blue guava ice? Or they'll just walk by and start choking. Just in the last three years in the school districts, I've seen an increase in substance use for sure. I've seen... I've seen students fourth or fifth grade getting caught with vapes. I've seen students in certain high schools that come to me and they would give me, they turned in vapes, right? One student told me he turned it in, he didn't like the flavor, so he just turned it in, didn't want it anymore.

Homeless used to line up on the sides of these corners right here. They'd set up their tents. This whole back area would be fuckin' piled in with homeless. And now they shut it down, they closed it, and so now it's only for the owners.

You're lucky you're in the interview right now. Man, they need to pin your ear.

Alright.

And say, I'm just gonna give it to God and let God handle it, you know? It's healthcare provider, it's bein' a pain in my booty.

Really?

Yeah.

Pray on it, brother.

Yep.

My name's Thomas, Thomas Joseph Peterson. I'm 47 years of age. I've lived in Lake County since I was 14. It's been, you know, besides being incarcerated, I'll just say I got three, you know, three prison terms, something I'm not proud of, you know. But, yeah. You know, at this moment, I got 15 months clean and just, you know, striving for a better life.

My name is Eli Andrews. I am founder and director of Hoping Humanity Inc. We pass out meals. We also have a silver living environment for men. And I have the lived experience of being a meth user and an alcoholic for most of my life. I have been sober now for nine years, completely clean. And I give all my glory to Jesus Christ. I'm just trying to get my stuff together.

Yeah. And be moving on.

Yeah, I like organizing at least once a day.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

That's cool. I feel like it gets really cluttered if you don't. Makeup's cooking. He's looking at my makeup. That's cute.

When I see them, I see a child. Not as like a little child, as somebody who has or had a mother and a father. What I see are treasures. Their treasures, most treasures like diamonds take a little bit more work. You've got to go deep into the ground. You've got to find out where they're at. It takes some digging, and it takes work to find things that are precious, the same as an oyster or as a pearl. It's irritation inside of an oyster. Those are where the jewels are. Those type of people, as they get healed, for the help of others.

My name is Bruno Sabatier. I am a District 2 Board of Supervisor for the County of Lake. I am a decision maker that impacts the entire county even though I represent the people that mostly live in the city of Clear Lake, but all the way out to Colusa County and Yolo County as well along Highway 20. The issue of opioids and substance use, fortunately it's part of the image of Lake County. People who are struggling in their lives, who are struggling to recover, whether they became incarcerated, whether they became addicted and became homeless, or just living in poverty and not being able to work. A lot of folks feel that we are not helping with the solution that we visually see when we're in our parks, when we're walking our streets, and so on. And they're right. It's not that we're not doing our part. It's not that we're failing. The people who are very poor also typically have nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, that is when you are more likely to make decisions that you may regret. So there was this study that was done with rats and the idea behind the environment when it comes to drugs. And so they had a rat cage with nothing in it with a bottle of water and cocaine. And this rat kept drinking the water until it had a heart attack and died. When they started adding a whole bunch of rats together and adding a playground with like a little rat wheel in the cage, all of a sudden the amount of heart attacks and deaths, basically overdose, reduced greatly, almost 90% or more. And that to me is always something that I'm reminded of as far as what do we need to do to help really change the potential behavior of folks in accessing substance use stuff, in accessing drugs. And if we create a beautiful environment for them to enjoy, then they're going to make the right decisions as well.