Mayor Lloyd Winnecke held a news conference today to announce the renamed Mayor’s Substance Abuse Task Force, formerly known as the Mayor’s No Meth Task Force.  The Task Force will also expand its mission to engage our community in working together to promote substance abuse awareness, education, treatment, and recovery. 

“When I launched the No Meth Task Force in 2012, our city was besieged by a series of meth lab seizures and explosions that devastated families and put neighbors at risk. Since then, seizures have decreased dramatically but there has been an evolution in drug use to other substances,” Mayor Winnecke said. “The refocused Substance Abuse Task Force will work with community partners to address new trends in drug use and provide information for people who struggle with various forms of substance abuse, including alcohol and opioids.”

With substance use issues still a concern in our community, Mayor Winnecke is leading over 20 professionals who deal with various aspects of substance use in the areas of law enforcement, prevention, addiction treatment, healthcare, behavioral health, public health, neighborhood and family support.

Three primary goals of the Task Force are to help the community acknowledge, understand, and effectively address the problem of substance abuse; promote effective prevention strategies and programs; and help people access treatment and recovery options.

The Task Force is bringing speaker Dr. Robert Meyers to Evansville in October to present a training seminar for behavioral health providers and conduct two free public forums for family members or other individuals (Concerned Significant Others) dealing with a loved one with a substance use disorder. 

Dr. Meyers, a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in Psychology at the University of New Mexico's Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction, is an internationally known speaker and trainer who has delivered trainings in 31 states in the USA and in 15 countries around the world.  He has published over 100 scientific articles or chapters and coauthored five books and one manual on addiction treatment, including "Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading and Threatening" and "Motivating Substance Abusers to Enter Treatment: Working with Family Members."

Dr. Meyers created the Community Reinforcement and Family Training or CRAFT method for family members. The CRAFT approach helps families identify practical and highly effective ways to move their loved one toward treatment while simultaneously improving their own lives.

As a resource for our community, the Mayor’s Substance Abuse Task Force has partnered with instructors and students at the University of Southern Indiana to build a new website. Visitors to the website can find events about substance abuse and wellness throughout the Tri-State, articles and videos on prevention and awareness, and multiple assets and resources for treatment and recovery. 

Go to https://msatf.org for more information on the Mayor’s Substance Abuse Task Force and the CRAFT event with Dr. Meyers.