r 77% all over injuries and of that, 44% were to children. this was just in the washington dc metro area. alcohol justice, our mission is to reduce harmful effects of family. we want producers to take shared responsible for the harm our products have caused to our friends and families. we were awarded with a federal program and have added prescription drugs as the next harmful substance to our list effecting kids and their families and the environment, not to forget to mention seniors and those with disabilities and family pets. in san francisco, we had a huge victory in san francisco banning all alcohol bans. with these prevention legislation, this prescription disposal

is a no brainier. well fair groups and recovery addictions and others have chime -- have chimed in to support this. vote yes and approve and send this with full recommendation to the board. thank you. speaker: thank you. and now i'm going to call speaker cards starting with maria muni. if you can line up to my left. i'm going to call a couple of other names. jenny, and michael lion, david grant. i don't know if this is michael or michelle. the last names is lion from the great panthers. starting with mara. speaker: i want to thank breed for

your leadership and for considering this policy. i do urge you to support the drug take back legislation. excessive waste has been proven to impact our environment and we're seeing pharmaceuticals reaching alarming levels in the bay including antibodies and anti-depressants and anxiety reducers. these are major food source for bay area species. and we can expect to see these chemicals, bio accumulating and top consumers here such as sea lions and sharks and harbor -- our local species are sensitive to synthetic hormones. this release of these products may cause reproductive failure in the population. because of their nature, pharmaceuticals

can have adverse effects on wild life even at low concentrations and we know the effects of this pharmaceutical pollution and we need to take preventive action from happening in our bay. there's an environmental need, but there's a public need as well. the number one -- the top visited page at save the bay website is information regarding pharmaceutical disposal. this is something the public is seeking out to protect the environment and do the right thing. and obvious leap the pilot program has had a lot of success and has kept about 50,000 pounds of chemicals out of our bay. we do urge that the committee accepts this proposal. speaker: thank you. next speaker, please. speaker: hi, my name is jenny and i'm here from safe the bay. i want to thank you for considering this policy

to protect public health and the environment. we're here to support this proposed take back drug legislation. save the bay has been concerned with pollution in the bay for over 50 years and we've addressed pollution already that's there such as plastic bags and styrofoam and san francisco has taken leadership in the past. we believe today, pharmaceutical disposal is a threat to bay water equality. it's not appropriate -- to fall only on the city. the industry needs to take responsibility as well. an extended model has been implemented in other systems. this isn't a new concept such as car tires and motor oil. this has been tried before. the problem arising from improper pharmaceutical products should not be -- san francisco has been

leading in the past such as the plastic bag ban and it's important for san francisco to lead in this area. we urge this supervisors to accept this proposed and i just wanted to reiterate that to save the bay -- it's highly visited so we see interest in participating in this sort of program. thank you. speaker: thank you, very much. next speaker please. speaker: good morning, supervisors. my name is david grant. thank you for the opportunity to come today. i'm here on behalf of the california alliance and the cochair along with michael lion of the san francisco chapter. a number of our members are here in the room because we were the organizational sponsor for this bill when it was in sacramento and we fought

for two years through hearings and stakeholder meetings and delayed before the drug industry killed the measure. we're urging those in san francisco to take it up. in san francisco, this morning, there's 117,000 people over 65 who on average take up to 10 prescriptions a piece. that means that right now, there's over 100-0000 of these -- there's 1 million bottles sitting on people's kitchen sink. you don't know when it expires. looking at this -- when you grab it off the shelf in the middle of the night because you have a pain or problem, that's a real formula for disaster. i do know that too many seniors are in the same boat not knowing what's in the bottles and what's the problem. this is a serious issue. my mother, a former

nurse put herself in the emergency room three times because of what medication she had forgotten. as we heard earlier, often times this might be good for you. or maybe not. children in the home especially they're young and teenagers can access to the drugs as well and those seniors are a subject of abuse and theft. i would like to encourage you to move this ordinance to the full board so the seniors are dispose of their medications and keep the land -- speaker: i'm going to call a couple more cards. kenny, keith and charles minister, and dede workman and larry. speaker: michael lion for california alliance for retired americans

and great panthers. we strongly urge that you pass this legislation onto the full board of supervisors. speaking from a senior perspective, medication errors after heart attacks and strokes are the biggest cause of admission to emergency rooms throughout the state. this is largely because our medications change often. when we go to the hospital, we're offered new medication in addition to the ones we were regularly taking. those come home with us and clutter up our medicine cabinets. paradox, another effect of the epidemic of opioids abuse is that for people with chronic pain, it's becoming harder for them to be able to get pain medication and i don't have

statistics but i have stories of friends of mine, so anything that can be done to reduce this would be good. as far as the opposition from big farma i'm amazed they're willing to show up in san francisco. their outrageous profits and their high prices caused millions of people not to be able to take medicines that they should be. it means that medicare and medicaid, state government and the city of san francisco are burdened with huge cost that they shouldn't be happening. and further more, they don't really own those medicines that they claim because the public actually contributes about 80% of the cost of the research for those drugs. so those are our drugs. speaker: thank you very much. next speaker please.

speaker: hello there. my name is henny kelly and i'm curious about what's going on. i brought my curious george box. and i want to show you it. look. these are only my drugs. i haven't brought my husband's drugs. i can't carry those. and i have more inside. i have over 100 pills here. i also have with me one penny. for every hundred pill that you can go into this program, it cost, after the complete set up, approximately one penny. i have a lot of people in this room, who take drugs. we're all worth this one penny if it saves one life. my daughter happened to take a

pill when she was a very young child that was out ready to be disposed. it happened to be in a place where she could see the red color. she took it. she fell asleep. we got worried. it wasn't the time of day for her to fall asleep so we called poison control. we talked to my uncle who left the pills there to be thrown out later in the day, and we found out the exact dose age she had taken. they told us she would sleep 12 to 18 hours. she woke up. other people's children don't wake up. and that is a problem. our environment, our children, our elders, slee -- three things we have to protect will be protected if we pass this ordinance and follow through. thank you. speaker: thank you very much,

mrs. kelly. next speaker, please. speaker: you can leave the pennies. [laughter] speaker: thank you. i'm a member of the california reliance senior and disability action, and national active and retired federal police. this seems like a no brainier to me. people have to be responsible for the products they put on the market. when pg and e gas lines blew up in san bruno, we didn't ask you to pay for it. we know pg and e are going to pay for it. they're on the hook for billions of dollars. we know the pharmaceutical companies in this world make billions of dollars. they're the highest paid ceo's amongst ceo of organizations and they have an ultimate responsibility to pay for the disposal of these drugs that

they manufacture and send all over the world. and like an earlier speaker said, we know they make fortunes and they want to continue making fortunes and not provide the drugs at a reasonable cost for millions of people around the world. so the fact they might be on the hook for a couple thousand dollars a piece, it's ridiculous that we have any kind of opposition and i stand here that you support this. speaker: thank you very much. next speaker, please. speaker: good afternoon, supervisors. i'm dede with the chamber of commerce. the chambers are happy to work with you on the language in this ordinance. we have many members that will be impacted by the legislation and everyone appreciates weighing in during the drafting process. we know there's a prevision in the ordinance regarding the alameda county, should the

supreme court grant a rid that the -- that ordinance won't become effective until 30 days after that has been rendered. we say this is recommended that it's operational only if the alameda county is found legal by the federal courts. that decision may reflect on the legality of this ordinance as well. speaker: next speaker, please. speaker: good morning, larry with sharp solutions. i'm a permanent -- i handle the take back programs in the state for the northern part of california. i'm here to testify in favor of this because in the last year i took 80 tons of pharmaceuticals to the plant to be destroyed. we've only scratched the surface and there's a huge opportunity for us to

provide these programs throughout the state. thank you. speaker: thank you very much. keith i called up, but i don't think he spoke yet. but i'm going to call a couple of names. peter decamer, andrea ventura, paul jensky and carlos gutierrez and sandra mac, if you can step forward. speaker: good afternoon, i'm peter and i'm the policy director for the river trust. the river trust is here in san francisco. the tawalam fills the reservoir and provides 85% of our drinking water. back in 2008, the san francisco pc approved the water

system program. a great project, upgrade the system and make sure it's seismically sound. embedded in the proposal to provide 20 million gallons the water to meet the projections and the environmental community and many others were opposed to that and they compromise and cap water sells and focus on recycling and ground water to meet additional need and in working together we did a good job at that. the recycled water project on the west side has begun and that's used for irrigation, but the future of water is portable reuse either indirect, letting it go through the soil to the ground water or putting it into the pipes and the technology exists, but one challenge is pharmaceutical.

we need to make sure our water is clean. there was a study a couple of years ago and it was likely because the climate was -- by 2100, a lot of people think the new drought is the new norm. we have to think about our water system and making sure it's clean. it's not just about the bay and wild life, but about humans as well. president breed, thank you for your leadership. speaker: thank you. next speaker, please. speaker: good afternoon, my name is adrian ventura. we have 4,000 members in san francisco alone, that's 50,000 in bay area. i'm not going to talk about the water impacts because you've heard about those already today and given the limited time, but what i do want to share with you today is

we are a citizen based organization and we talk to the public everyday at their front doors, on the phone with our members and at public event and through social media. we got concerns from the san francisco bay to their taps. on monday, i actually met with our field outreach staff and asked as i've done in the past, what they've heard from residents in san francisco since this ordinance was first introduced and the response has been, overwhelmingly positive in support of this. frankly to a degree, i've never seen in my career. people in san francisco recognize that these chemicals, pharmaceutical companies are get noog the bay and the drinking water and -- they're concerned when they throw these chemicals in the trash, and

they're looking for solutions that are cost effective. but most of all, we've heard that industry needs to take responsibility both for the physical, creation of these programs and for the financial aspects of this for three core reasons. consumers already pay more for their medications than any other industrial treatment and they pay for their water and the association cost for accidental poisoning. they've done their share. it's time for the industry who is profiting to step up and do there's. speaker: thank you very much. next speaker, please. speaker: good morning, my name is carlos. i'm the senior director of state government affairs for the product -- dietary

supplements. i stand in opposition to this legislation, this ordinance today for a few reasons. number one, public safety. there are no federally controlled sun stances -- federal controlled substances currently on the market. there isn't a high rate of abuse or diversion of fda approved over the counter medication in stores or pharmacies and to the extent they are, there's a function of safe -- at the end of the day, it's to have it stored at your home when you might need it. number two, environment, i think we have to rely on science. and the science associated with our government. the fda and the epa and even the world health organization have stated

that traces of pharmaceuticals in the water supply pose no harm to humans. they state that in home disposal is adequate and appropriate. and they state they're small traces of pharmaceuticals in the water and we're really talking parch patrillion. it passes through our body. to put it frankly, it passes through our body. there's issues i haven't been able to speak to your staff. at the end of the day, this is a progressive policy because ultimately consumers will have to pay for more for their medication that they rely on. over the counter medication and prevent folks going to the doctor. speaker: thank you very much. next speaker, please. speaker: good afternoon, supervisors. paul on behalf of recology.

recology through sunset skafben energy. recology supports this legislation for a couple of reasons. environmental and also for worker's safety. i've been asked a couple of times, when i throw the drugs into the trash, which i'm told to do it, it's in a container or blister pack, that's not going to get into the environment. just to give you an idea of where that goes. when the trash gets picked up, it goes to a compact truck that crushes it down to 2/3 volume and it's run over by a tractor and they compat it further before it's pushed off a ledge and driven to a land field, and dumped in the land field and run over by bulldozers. that might be the

only way to get the cap off the bottom for some of those medications. the others is for safety worker. we want to get to zero waste and that means we have to touch every trash in san francisco. that means that workers are going to be exposed to these drugs and medications. for those reasons -- speaker: i would like to call a few more cards. speaker: richard and sonia and catherine hide. speaker: hello, my name is mac. i'm can the california -- sorry, i'm with the california alliance of retired americans. as you may or may not know,

the california alliance of groups. i was in my automatic mode there, sorry. we are, in california alliance, we're in favor of this bill and we hope, not only will this committee send it forward with a due pass recommendation, but it gets a unanimous vote at the board of supervisors. if there is an amendment made -- unless the supreme court says it's not legal. that's the first thing i would like to make. i would like to say and i should have said this first, i want to thank supervisor breed and mar for bringing this forward. and i would point out that i'm one of those people who have -- as supervisor breed mentioned closes the medicine cabinet and forget about it because of the difficulty. it's not science difficulty,

it's inconvenience. for example, i took something [inaudible]. i never got a return bag. and then took some medication to the local police department and i asked their guy, is it okay and he said, well, i'll take it. so as a matter of fact, i'm left with some [inaudible] something like that, a couple of bottles hydro coden and other stuff. but i want to point out that i'm not alone on this. it sits there waiting for me to find someway that it's sustainable, accessible to get rid of this stuff. i urge you to help me. thank you. speaker: thank you. next speaker, please. speaker: good morning, thank you supervisor yee and members of the committee. i'm the vice president of government affairs for bay bio.

we represent the legion leading pharmaceutical companies plus the 100 plus here in the san francisco. we submitted a letter this week detailing many of our concerns and i'll only touch on a few here, the ones i think is press for us. the goal of improving water quality will not happen due to the fact that most -- and just looking at the science talking to proponents to proponents -- beyond that, the lack of shared responsibility in the bill is troubling to us. if retail collection kiosk is a feature, we think the retailers should participate. we understand that not every facility is a good match for this, but we're

required to give a stewardship plan. if we identify locations that's -- they should have to participate and they have a chance to express their concerns during that process. the prohibition is one that concerns us as well. we understand that we should have some [inaudible] in the game and if the program happens, we will. however, by charging a fee to consumers, it's a sign of value to the program. on the other hand, it signals there's a disposal option for the life of pharmaceutical. you do a good job of letting consumers know they can take it back. electron i -- electronic products and -- i know when i'm done using it, i can take it back.

speaker: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, president breed. my name is sonia and i'm speaking on behalf of the sierra club. sierra club supporting the safe drug disposal ordinance. we're concerned as many emphasized by the growing quantities and their improper disposal because of their easy options. the rising evidence of pharmaceuticals being detected in the bay is alarming as well as the abuse of course potential by other people. as san francisco moves towards increase use of recycled water for its water supply which will be happening as we face ongoing drought, we do need to use every means available to keep medications out of our waste water in the first place.

given this successful pilot program and the examples of programs in the u.s. and other countries, we feel this ordinance offers a proven solution. we like it aims for broad, convenient access to disposal locations and other options. and it reflects a fair funding and efficient administration model. we respectfully urge you to take this important step towards protecting human and environmental health by moving this ordinance forward. thank you. speaker: thank you very much. next speaker, please. speaker: i name is [inaudible]. i'm apart of the marine program in marine and in costa which is working with the law enforcement and other agencies to get drugs out of homes because we see -- i see over the 30 years of

being a consultant pharmacy and working with young people, by getting the drugs safely out of homes is very important. 73% of the drugs that are taken by kids, young people and young adults come from homes. and making -- again, getting the word out in the community and making it easy for them to dispose their medications is what we need to do. they do it in other countries we can do it too and i'm in support of your ordinance although i live across the bay and i work in marine. i wanted to let you know we're looking close to your ordinance and we're having public hearings. thank you. speaker: thank you, next speaker please. speaker: good morning, and thank you. i'll be brief because you've heard for so many people. my name is catherine hide and i'm