The Equity, Community Affairs, Housing, Health, and Education Committee of the Louisville Metro Council met on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, at 1:30 PM. Vice Chair Stuart Benson called the meeting to order with a quorum of six members present. The sole agenda item was a special discussion on substance use, abuse, and addiction awareness, featuring a presentation by Gene Gilchrist, founder of Stay Clean, a HIPAA-protected telehealth platform for addiction treatment. The meeting adjourned at 2:17 PM.
Presentation by Gene Gilchrist: Gilchrist provided an extensive overview of substance use disorder (SUD) in America, emphasizing that the common image of an addict (homeless, destitute, person of color) represents only about 1% of the problem. He cited SAMHSA data estimating 40.3 million Americans have a substance use disorder, with less than 1 in 5 receiving treatment and fewer than 10% achieving one-year recovery. He noted that nicotine kills 468,000 Americans annually, alcohol kills 98,000, and overdose deaths (primarily from opioids) recently surpassed alcohol deaths, totaling about 673,000 deaths per year—nearly equaling heart disease (696,000). He argued that addiction is a chronic disease, not a moral failing, and called for eliminating stigma, shifting from a war-on-drugs supply-side approach to a demand-side focus, and promoting harm reduction with recovery pathways. He highlighted that 43% of employees on any given day would be at risk of failing a drug test that includes alcohol, and that industries from education (lowest abuse rate) to mining have significant SUD rates.
Committee Q&A:
That gun is then auctioned off by the Kentucky state police. These guns that are used to commit crimes end up back on our streets. And too often, guns that are used to commit crimes are used to commit another crime. That needs to stop. This gun was used by a 17-year-old child in Louisville who attempted to kill another 17-year-old child. Right now, state law forbids us from outright destroying these guns. That's frustrating, disappointing, and dangerous. When we seize drugs in our city, we don't put those drugs back on the street and give them to a different drug dealer. We destroy them. Why don't we do the same thing with guns? I want our city to do our part and permanently destroy illegal guns that have been used to commit crimes once in our city. Once is too many. That is somebody that wants to I don't know if I don't know. I like solving problems. I'm a poor man living in a rich man's work hungry bunch. We were the good Lord knocked at our door. I usually spend my money on equipment. No, Chin Chung. I like to build things. Oh, we got another minute. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Metro TV, we're gonna start in one minute. Okay, are we ready? Good afternoon. Uh this is equities, community affairs, healthy, housing, health, and education. My name is Stuart Benson. I'm I'm vice chair of this committee. Dr. Barbara Shanklin, she's got an excused absence, as does uh Shakori Arthur with us today. We got uh Tammy Hawkins, um Andrew Owens, uh Dan Siles, Jr. Um, and Betsy Rue. Um, I think. And oh, and Marilyn Parker. Thank you, Marilyn. So today our topic is uh substantial substance youth abuse uh addiction awareness. Uh Gene Gil Christ uh is with us today. Uh he I guess your company are is uh uh stay clean. Yes, sir. Umless anybody's got any questions right now, yeah. Let him give us some information that we dire we really need. So thank you. Mr. Benson, thank you. Members of the committee, thank you, uh those present and and those online. Uh my name is Jean Gilchrist. I live in Lake Forest. My wife and I adopted Louisville as our hometown in 2001. Um, and so uh I don't think Mr. Piagenti is with us today, but uh Cheryl's the other Democrat in Lake Forest.