Kathy Hines founded TN-Zero after moving to Tennessee from Michigan.LA VERGNE, Tenn. -
Citizens in one Middle Tennessee county are taking a stand against synthetic drugs.
On Saturday, crime task force TN-Zero hosted a rally in La Vergne to raise money for families affected by synthetic drugs. The rally also aimed to bring awareness about the dangers.
"Synthetic drugs are something totally different [and that's] something people don't understand," Kathy Hines, founder of TN-Zero, told Nashville's News 2.
She continued, "You have marijuana [which] people have known about it for years. You might smoke it get high and get the munchies but [with] synthetic marijuana you start hallucinating."
Hines, a retired police detective from Detroit, created TN-Zero after she moved to Tennessee.
She recalled, "When I first got here, the thing that really bothered me was going into a convenience store and seeing crack pipes and bongs and seeing all these things for synthetic drugs and I thought, 'How can this be here?'"
State Representative Mike Sparks' family has been personally impacted by the drugs.
He told Nashville's News 2, "I started seeing these packages and I really didn't know what it was. I thought it was incense at first but I started approaching some of these markets to see if they were selling it because I started seeing some of the harmful effects it caused."
Sparks' son experimented with synthetic drugs and that prompted the 49th District representative to take action.
"If I can help one person, one mother, one grandparent, it's worth it in my opinion and that's what I want to do just bring awareness and try to help some other folks," Sparks said.
Read more at TNZero.com.
