Were there any need of a "message in a bottle" indicating that drug smugglers have become increasingly resourceful in using maritime transportation of their loads, Texas certainly has one to show—or dozens, rather. The Houston Chronicle has reported that at least twelve times during the past year, loads of illegal narcotics potentially worth millions on the street have washed up on Texas beaches. These errant packages constitute just one of many recent indications that drug smugglers are hard at work finding new ways of getting their goods into the United States in the wake of America's strengthened efforts to secure the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico land border.
The "wash-ups," as they are called, are routinely turned in by Texas beachcombers, park rangers, fishermen, and deputies; they consist most often of cocaine, followed in frequency by marijuana and methamphetamine. Houston's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area group (an association of law-enforcement agencies), reports that a single wash-up of marijuana on South Padre Island this year weighed approximately 800 pounds; Jefferson County saw a 24-kilogram package of cocaine; and High Island reported a similarly-sized deposit. Most recently, a Galveston woman found a 37-kilogram bag of cocaine wrapped in seaweed and barnacles on her local beach. Drug rehabs will have problems contending with the rise in drug addiction and the need for treatment if trafficking continues unabated.
Wash-ups can occur through a number of circumstances—whether dumped during attempts to evade capture, bounced off the back of high-velocity motorboats that speed up the coast, or casualties from capsized craft, they all indicate increased use of the Gulf of Mexico as drug traffickers try to outwit rival smugglers and law enforcement alike. The HIDTA coalition notes that the Texas coast affords many covert, isolated locations for depositing shipments. By dark, high-speed fishing boats are often used to skirt the largely undeveloped Texas shoreline and to leave loads hidden among the dunes, where they are later found by runners using GPS's and 4-wheel-drive vehicles.
Drug rehabs in Houston and other major Texas cities report that the drug problem is not caused solely by this trafficking, but that it doesn't help matters.
Jeff Gordon, Lead Counselor at the Narconon Riverbend Retreat, says that the greater proximity to trafficking cartels has only worsened Texas's drug abuse problem. As a conduit for national distribution of illegal narcotics, Texas is especially vulnerable to the effects of trafficking. Not only do authorities worry that civilians are at-risk of witnessing something that could get them killed, the wide availability of dangerous substances puts them in danger of becoming drug abusers themselves. Texas Narconon drug rehabs work to help addicts before the addict's problem becomes too advanced.
