Compact 2020 launches new initiative

Compact 2020’s community prevention team recently introduced a new countywide initiative: The Family Friendly Vendor program. 

The purpose of the program is for local vendors to sign a pledge agreeing to not sell items to school-age students that promote unsafe behavior (specifically synthetic substances and drug paraphernalia). Each community prevention team is asking local merchants to partner with them to provide a safe and healthy environment for children and young families. 

The announcement came at a press conference on May 28 with mayors from six Shelby County cities present.

“In Shelby County, we want to protect our students,” said Clay Hammac, executive director of Compact 2020 and commander of the Shelby County Drug Task Force. “In 2016, we addressed the threat that was clear and present that our students were being bombarded with potential threats to illicit drug activity and said it’s not going to happen in our community, which led to the birth of Compact 2020.”

Hammac said after learning that students were being exposed or enticed with substances that did not encourage healthy behavior or celebrated illicit drug use, the community prevention team came up with the idea to launch the Family Friendly Vendor initiative to celebrate the vendors who are responsive and proactive about problematic merchandise in their stores.

“We are asking merchants to partner with us in the community and become a Family Friendly Vendor, to sign the pledge and walk alongside us to foster an environment that is healthy for students,” Hammac said. “In return, merchants will be celebrated with a decal labeling them as a Family Friendly Vendor.” 

The pledge is voluntary and there is no enforcement, but members of the community prevention teams can notify the team of anything they believe to be a violation of the pledge. If a merchant chooses to no longer participate in the program, there are no consequences but they must take down their decal.

Vendors are being asked not to sell a host of items, including marijuana pipes or grinders, synthetic urine and drug paraphernalia, or to move them behind the counter to be less accessible to children and teens. 

The pledge states in part: “Shelby County continues to lose citizens to death by drug overdoses caused by substance use disorder, better known as addiction. We understand the abuse of any mind-altering substance can substantially diminish the quality of life and have dramatically detrimental impacts on families and our community as a whole. Use of mind-altering substances by people between the ages of 12 and 21 can greatly increase their risk of developing a substance use disorder. Products which are packaged in such a way as to promote or glamorize the use of controlled substances or downplay the dangers associated with the use … should not be prominently displayed where our children shop. … We hereby pledge to either remove such products or move them to a location not directly in the sight of children.” 

Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego said that “we have to start with our youth and change the culture so it will be unacceptable when they become adults and lead by example.”

Hammac said this program is not pushing one merchant over another but celebrating those who are responsive to this initiative.

“We are taking ownership of our community, and Shelby County is digging our heels in the sand for our kids and families and fighting back,” he said.