On Friday, a shipment of bananas was donated to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice from Port of America in Freeport Texas. Upon pick up, department officers noticed something was off about the weight of the fruit pallets. To their discovery, officers found drugs hidden in the shipments of the bananas. 540 packages of cocaine were hidden among the bundles of bananas, amounting to a value of almost 18 million dollars. Even with several federal entities investigating the astonishing shipment, it is still unclear who or when the cocaine entered the shipment. This wasn't the first time drug smugglers have tried to use fruits to hide illegal substances. In the last year, almost two tons of marijuana was disguised as limes in a commercial shipment across the Texas-Mexico border. Another discovery of high massed drugs was caught two years ago concealed in carrot-shaped packaging entering from Mexico.
This article produced by Amanda Jackson, CNN, Sunday afternoon was written just a couple days after Texas department officials discovered the shipment of drugs. Prior to this article, I was well aware that there are still drug smugglers making a living in America, I just didn't know the vast amount of drugs they are receiving to sneak across officials. This article reminds me of American merchants/ Yankees that would smuggle goods from foreign nations during the active Navigation acts in 1651. This article, written for smugglers to see and hear, or for anyone interested when reading the title was meant to inform Americans that there is still indeed a large amount of drug smuggling into the United States and that it will potentially lead to more drug use on the streets. The author didn't necessarily have a viewpoint on this topic but was interested enough to let others hear about the smuggling. This article on a deeper level, I think, was written to bring to light that these mass smugglings of drugs into our country is going to take its toll when it is everywhere on the streets, and when no one is obeying the law against those illegal substances. It's important for people to understand that drugs on every street could be in our future without people helping to stop them.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/us/cocaine-donated-bananas-tdcj-trnd/index.html
I agree that the mass smuggling of illegal substances into the U.S. could lead to a multitude of dangerous consequences, although I wonder what the path to solution should be. For as you seem to believe that the chances of a future of drugs and disobedience will multiply as no one obeys the laws enforced against illegal drugs, countries such as Portugal have actually reaped benefits from the decriminalization of drugs, including impressive drops in overdoses, HIV infection, and drug-related crime. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteThis is actually pretty insane , the many ways people can hide drugs is crazy. I knew that drug smuggling was still going on but I did not expect cocaine to be in banana shipments . -Alma Alvarado-Cabrera-
ReplyDelete