Tennessee Code Title 29. Remedies and Special Proceedings § 29-38-102

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a civil remedy for damages to persons in a community injured as a result of illegal drug use. These persons include parents, employers, insurers, governmental entities, and others who pay for drug treatment or employee assistance programs, as well as infants injured as a result of exposure to drugs in utero, referred to in this chapter as “drug babies.” The chapter will enable injured persons to recover damages from those persons in the community who have joined the illegal drug market. A further purpose of the chapter is to shift, to the extent possible, the cost of the damage caused by the existence of the illegal drug market in a community to those who illegally profit from that market. The further purpose of the chapter is to establish the prospect of substantial monetary loss as a deterrent to those who have not yet entered into the illegal drug distribution market. The further purpose is to establish an incentive for drug users to identify and seek payment for their own drug treatment from those dealers who have sold drugs to the user in the past.