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“We certainly have xylazine and fentanyl,” says John Fox, Director of Drug and Alcohol Programs for Greene County, Pa. “We’re a small county, but we’re not immune to having the same kind of problems as larger counties.”
Greene County has been using Deterra since 2021 to help residents safely deactivate and dispose of unwanted drugs. When Greene County Prevention Specialist Tracie Sypin learned about the Deterra® Household Mailing Campaign, she saw it as an efficient way to engage community members who are not normally served by county services and empower them to help prevent drug misuse.
“We know there’s a large segment of the population that we don’t typically interact with, and we wanted to make sure we weren’t overlooking them,” Fox says. “With the household mailing, we were able to send a personal note to every resident of the county that we could and ask them to be a part of the solution.”
The Deterra Household Mailing Campaign consists of a Deterra Direct Mail Pouch (DMP) and educational postcard mailed directly to households. In June, more than 15,000 were mailed to all county households to encourage community members to properly dispose of unwanted medications so they cannot fall into the wrong hands.
The Greene County Drug & Alcohol Program supports take-back events and local medicine dropoff sites, but Sypin acknowledges not everyone has easy access to them.
“We live in a very rural county with no public transportation. Getting people to those events can be an issue, so having Deterra go directly to them was exciting for us,” she says.
The department applied for funding through the state’s alcohol and drug program, which receives federal funds to address the opioid crisis. Through the campaign, households were mailed a Deterra Direct Mail Pouch that allows users to safely destroy unwanted drugs with the simple addition of tap water. Each pouch comes with an educational postcard with information about county resources and a QR code linked to a survey for user feedback.
“We were the first county to do this in Western Pennsylvania – we like to trend set in our little county when we get the opportunity, and the feedback has been great,” says Sypin. “The pouches never expire, so people can keep them in the medicine cabinet or share them with a neighbor in need.”
In addition to preventing misuse, the pouches help prevent unused drugs from harming the environment or entering the water table, which Fox notes is an added incentive for the county.
The Deterra Household Mailing Campaign has been a cost-effective way for Greene County to engage the community and provide practical tools for drug misuse prevention.
“I’m very proud of the household mailing campaign,” Sypin says. “It will go down as one of the best things I’ve done in my time with the county.”
In addition to mailing Deterra to households, Greene County plans to distribute Deterra Pouches with custom labels at upcoming community events. The county will also provide pouches and countertop easels for easy distribution at local hospitals and clinics.
“If we’re going to make any headway against this as a county, it’s with prevention,” says Fox. “I think all human services agencies struggle with how to get people to know what you do, and this was an opportunity to really hit a home run.”
Visit DeterraSystem.com/government to explore how other organizations are using Deterra or reach out to (612) 568-1128 or Sales@DeterraSystem.com to discuss how to implement at-home drug disposal initiatives in your community.
