KNOX COUNTY — From meth labs to pill mills and now opioids, Tennessee has seen its fair share of drug epidemics over the years.
But if there’s a silver lining, it is what law enforcement agents learn from past epidemics to help combat current drug trends.
"The thing about having a previous epidemic is what you learned," said Tommy Farmer, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Special Agent In Charge of the Drug Division and Director of the Tennessee Dangerous Drugs Task Force. "And if we don’t learn something from our past experiences, unfortunately we have a higher tendency to repeat those bad experiences."
Just half way through the year, Knox County has already seen 153 suspected drug overdoses.
In order for the numbers to go down, those on the front lines say they have to use what they’ve learned from past epidemics to save lives now.
"We learned a lot from meth. I think it better prepared us to deal with some of the things that we’re dealing with now in the opioid epidemic," said Farmer. "I don’t know where we would be with trying to respond now to pill milling operations with highly, highly hazardous and toxic products such as Fentanyl."
Farmer says providing treatment options to addicts is just as important as cutting off the supply.
"It’s not just a factor of supply and demand, it also has to factor in their use and abuse," said Farmer. "If you go too fast and you don’t have enough treatment resources and other resources that are available, then the cold reality to it is that the majority of them are going to go to the streets for illicit drugs."
Governor Bill Haslam also says the meth epidemic helped shape how the state is now combating the opioid crisis.
"When I first came, meth was our biggest challenge. We changed some laws around meth production, we increased some penalties for it, put more money into law enforcement around that and it made a difference," Haslam said. "Unfortunately, sometimes you just chase people from one bad drug to another. What we’re trying to do is make certain we don’t do that here."
Just last week, Haslam signed into law the Tennessee Together plan, limiting the amount of opioids that can be prescribed, among other things. The legislation aims to give people access to treatment while reducing the amount of drugs in the community.