I would like to relate an experience that I had that no father should have to deal with.

Due to a son-in-law with a crack cocaine problem, I found myself on South Street in Franklin after midnight on Saturday morning. I was searching all through the streets for him until I found him. I put barriers up to stop him, to keep him from destroying himself and the innocent people around him, but his love for and pursuit of crack took over his life and no one else, including his wife, his kids and his profession of a relationship with Jesus Christ, meant anything to him at that moment. I’m sad to say this day ended with a high-speed police chase, innocent lives in jeopardy, my daughter’s car wrecked and hopefully, some real jail time — not just a slap on the wrist like before.

Please pray for my son-in-law and all the victims and victimizers of this situation and hundreds more just like it.

What amazed me is I’ve been repairing heating and air conditioning in this neighborhood for more than 25 years and have never seen so much open and obvious drug activity as there is now. It seems dealers stand out on every block fearlessly selling their poison — trying to get yet another generation to join them on the road to destruction.

Crackheads say the first time they take crack it gives them the best feeling they ever had. They are hooked with the first use and begin their path to destruction. They usually name several things that crack is better than. It’s “better than sex, alcohol or any other drug.”

The problem is that they can never get the same feeling back again because the neurotransmitters in the brain become damaged. Addicts continue to chase this feeling regardless of the cost, even if they have to beg, borrow or steal. But it will never be the same no matter how often or how much they use in the future. It is a great tragedy that costs us all more than we realize in the heartbreak for the families; the shattered relationships; the broken homes; and crime.

This is a huge problem in Franklin, and the police can’t solve it by themselves. Anyone involved in this legal process knows that even when they do lock one up, the court has them back on the street in no time flat. I was thinking while I was sitting there watching a drug dealer in action on the corner of Oak Street that this could be turned around if the people took back their streets. If they got out their video cameras in plain sight and took pictures of the activity and wrote down license numbers of the cars involved.

Let the dealers know that we have had enough of them getting our children and grandchildren hooked on this stuff.

It may not happen overnight, but I think they would eventually find some other neighborhood to infest. Follow them; harass them; and do whatever it takes to make it difficult for them to operate. Evil people will continue to flourish as long as good people do nothing. I’m not a policeman, and don’t mean to oversimplify this problem, but I do believe they would flee like cockroaches in the light if enough people fearlessly banded together before it’s too late.