SAINT CLOUD, Minn. — As the opioid crisis marches on, medications like Narcan have prevented overdose deaths, with Minnesota going so far as to enact a state law requiring schools and first responders to carry it.
But it's not the only solution to the problem.
Tuesday in Saint Cloud, drug prevention experts gathered to talk about strategies to prevent people, especially children, from illicit drug use in the first place.
The 50th Annual Minnesota Prevention Program Sharing Conference aims to put the state's leaders in substance prevention in the same room to discuss challenges and solutions.
Madeline Bremel is the Events Manager for the Minnesota Prevention Resource Center, the organization in charge of the conference. She said the pandemic has stunted emotional/social growth and made kids in particular more vulnerable to bad choices. That's just one of the challenges in substance prevention.
"More and more we're working with youth directly," she said.
Prevention leaders say they are battling misinformation and messaging kids are getting on their cell phones. One tactic is to fight back with similar methods.
Fairmont High School students are on a mission to reach out to their peers and counteract what they've seen on social media.
"A lot of like brands, they will have, like, celebrities or influencers putting out pictures on their Instagram or videos on their TikTok of them, like vaping," said senior Emily Wheeler.
Coffee and Clarity Preventing Substance Misuse is their podcast available on Spotify. Students who are part of the Martin County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition (MCSAP) interview guests like first responders.
"We touch on topics like drug prevention, misuse, substance misuse, and we touch on some it can be sensitive subjects like mental health," said Megan Wheeler.
Resources are here from all over the state to share ideas and challenges
"New drugs that are coming out every day, kids are being exposed to different substances every single day," said Andrea Abel, a supervisor with the Department of Human Services.
Abel said funding is also a huge challenge because effective prevention methods take a lot of resources.
"Tools that are specific to your culture that will help with prevention," Abel said.
That's what Thomas Barrett, a youth mentor and hip hop artist from Red Lake Nation and David Iverson, former coordinator of the Drug Free Communities Grant in Deer River, did with their New Day music video project created by kids in their communities.
"I wanted something that was about them, but related to prevention that gave some hope," said Iverson.
"They're more influenced by their peers and what they see through their phone than they are by their teachers and their classrooms," said Barrett.