TBI official visits Hub City to spread awareness on fentanyl crisis
JACKSON, Tenn. — Various Hub City leaders visited Destiny Church to be educated by Tommy Farmer, from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Drug Task Force, to help spread awareness of the ongoing fentanyl crisis.
“We thought was a good opportunity to come in and inform the community leaders about things going on across the state, or things that we could use, to give us more information to what we’re dealing with,” said City of Jackson Councilman Johnny Dodd. “Because right now, it changes like anything else every day. So we want to get information from him, what we don’t know, what we do know, and be able to bring it all together and see how we may can share with the community.”
Farmer not only shared about fentanyl, but other drugs as well that were previously the top drugs, along with showing examples of the size of a gram, comparing it to a sugar packet.
“We have a lot of overdoses and people dying,” said Jackson Police Sergeant Jerod Cobb. “So I believe to educate the public would be a great way to battle the pandemic that we’re having.”
Sergeant Cobb works in the Vice unit of the Jackson Police Department and has experienced the horrors of seeing overdoses.
He shared advice for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, trying to help someone.
“When someone is in an overdose state, some people might think that they’re intoxicated, sleep, snoring,” Cobb said. “What fentanyl does is slow down the respiratory system, to a state of shallow breathing, to the state that they’re stopped breathing, and possibly pass away.”
And for those that are in fear of reaching for help, trying to saving a life is more important.
“Just because there might be some kind of narcotics on the scene a lot of people scared that law enforcement, that we’re going to lock them up. That’s not the case,” Cobb said. “We really want to help and help everyone that’s in need. I don’t want to see anyone pass away. But unfortunately, that’s what’s going on.”
Both Councilman Dodd and Sergeant Cobb extended an invite to the public for the next I-C.A.R.E. community event at 6 p.m. on May 7 at Lane College.
They also would like to remind the public to not hold on the knowledge, but to share what they learn with others.
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