Political Quotes

“Mr. President, over the last few years, we have all witnessed a devastating rise in fentanyl overdoses. While I have been around Tennessee this month and visiting with so many citizens and local elected officials, I have heard a lot about this and about how Tennessee has really not escaped this threat. In 2021, the latest year for which we have stats, there were over 4,000 Tennesseans that lost their lives to fentanyl overdose. Equally as concerning is the amount of fentanyl that local law enforcement is finding. This is something that they see coming up in routine investigations. They are trying to protect their citizens. They are doing all they can. They are distributing and using Narcan, trying to save precious lives, and they feel like the fentanyl just keeps coming. There have been several significant seizures in Tennessee this year. Just last week, police were chasing down a stolen out-of-State car in Dyersburg, TN. While they were trying to locate the fleeing suspect from that stolen car, they discovered a lunch box that he had dropped. When they looked in the lunch box, they found 750 suspected fentanyl pills. The street value is over $14,000. That is in rural West Tennessee, in Dyersburg, TN. Law enforcement officials in Knoxville found thousands of grams of fentanyl in one man's possession. They found it in his car, and they found it in his house.…”