This news item I have borrowed and republished from the Knox County Sheriffs Department website.
Knox County Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones returned from a 7 day trip to Taiwan on Monday. He and Assistant Chief Lee Tramel visited the country at the request of Fang-Chin-Chiu, the Acting Speaker of Chia-Yi City Council. They toured police agencies and the court systems in Chia-Yi and Taipei. Chiai-Yi is a city of 270,000 people and Taipei has just over 2 million.
Sheriff Jones said drugs are becoming a problem in Taiwan as they are in the United States. He said a drug called “ice” is becoming very prevalent. “It’s similar to our meth problem. One of the components of ice is pseudoephedrine which is found in cold medicines and also used to make meth. The police officials were very interested in how we control the cold medicines, the data bases, and cracking down on how much medicine can be sold to one person,” said Sheriff Jones.
The media found the visitors very newsworthy. The Sheriff topped their newscasts and made the front page of their newspapers. Sheriff Jones said he found the trip to be highly educational and a good informational exchange. “I found the police agencies to be very community oriented and progressive,” said the Sheriff. Sheriff Jones added that there are over one hundred Taiwanese families living in Knox County and several students who attend the University of Tennessee and Knox County Schools.
Several police agencies in Taiwan are planning to visit Knox County next August to take a look at law enforcement agencies and correctional system.
Sheriff Jones said thanks to the generosity of Acting Speaking Fang-Chin-Chiu and the other law enforcements agencies in Taiwan, the trip was not at the expense of Knox County taxpayer.
