 Bemidjiri Opiate Programs gathered this morning to discuss ways to fight the drug epidemic in Minnesota. There were representatives from about 20 different agencies including Sanford Health, North Homes Children and Family Services, Leech Lake, White Earth and Red Lake Indian Health Services as well. District 5 Representative John Purcell was there and the organizations took turns sharing ideas on how everyone can work together to solve the crisis. We've been reaching out to mental health, medical, business community and we want to find the place to reach out to the general public so that they can both learn more about this and also in some cases they may be able to plug in like the peer recovery support and you do need certain training for that. There were two main objectives in the meeting. The first was to find common ground on opiate related issues. The other objective was to discuss the new services that will be provided by the state of Minnesota. The group also discussed how to bring more awareness to the issue. For people individually there is knowing about opiates, there's knowing about things to reduce the risk of them getting to the wrong places. There is knowing what to do with friends and relatives which is can be a very challenging situation if they're involved with opiates. And then as I said there's recovery support and there are prevention efforts and those are all things that I think community members can get involved in. The meetings are scheduled to happen bi-monthly. Organizers say there's a possibility they could be opened up to members of the general public and with clarification that was District 5A Representative candidate John Purcell who was at that meeting today. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.