by Adam Ghassemi
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Senator Mae Beavers knew the fight against synthetic drugs would be fierce. She says past bills aimed to stop them didn't because makers would just change the recipe.
"We hope to stop all of them," Beavers said Thursday. "If businesses continue to sell drugs that are going to kill and harm our kids sure we're going shut them down."
House Bill 3175, which she co-sponsored, made it nearly impossible to sell synthetic drugs legally.
In April, the bill passed the House and Senate unanimously. Little did she know Representative Tony Shipley would get this kind of reaction.
A blogger wrote, "We're coming for you. The businesses you sought to destroy have more money than you do and far more resolve." Going on to say, "You attacked our livelihood, which means you attacked our families and their well-being."
"Now we say (expletive) your family," it says.
By phone, Shipley calls the threats vulgar.
"I just find that disturbing that the United States, our country, has come to a point where drug dealers can openly in the blog exercise their first amendment rights and threaten sitting legislators from doing their job. I find that to be profound," he said.
"We took it seriously and I know Tony did. They rounded up his family up there to make sure everybody was safe," Beavers said. "When you're not sitting in front of somebody making the threat it's a little bit easier and I think a lot of people have gotten carried away."
We contacted the blogger, but so far haven't heard back.
The original post went up in May. An update posted Wednesday defends it saying it wasn't a threat, just political, which shows support for Shipley's opponent.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol spokeswoman says their Criminal Investigations Division is looking into the threats. The TBI tell us they looked into the situation, but they have no open investigation.
05/15/12 post: http://ablogination.tn420.org/blog/index.php/cotm/2012/05/15/
07/25/12 post: http://ablogination.tn420.org/blog/index.php/cotm?cat=20
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