The Local
The tide is high, and so are the locals. Drink the water, bring your shovels, because today we're going gold digging.
Around 1,000 kg of 83% pure cocaine has been found washed up against the shores of southwest France since mid-October. Officials say that at this level of purity, one gram of this could easily go for $70 on the streets of France. French authorities have told the public to not touch, but to inform the police. Of course, this hasn't stopped everyone. Who knew someone would would take the time to pick up a bag of gold off the ground?
Recently, a 17-year-old was caught with 5 kg of cocaine from the beach of Lacanau. Surprisingly, he braved the 6 hour round trip drive to Lacanau from Toulouse. There seems to be nothing stopping people from taking dibs on their very own pack.
Even though this occured in France, taking a bag off the shores of France is technically considered theft by finding. At least in the United States. One cannot claim something simply because they've found it lying around. In order to lawfully claim the object(s), they must make a genuine effort to find the proper owner, and whether or not it was abandoned or merely unattended for. Again, this is according to the United States, meaning that the same law might not apply to France.
One possibility on the origin, however, points to Belgium and Spain, as most of the seized 170 tons were found there. Currently, officials don't know exactly where the packages have originated from, but appearances are going to persist for some time.
Regarding current efforts, it doesn't seem like the French government is as worried about the drugs as they can be. If the drugs make it onto the street, it would rock the black market, potentially sending aftershocks to the legal market, not relating to cocaine. Simply blocking the beach from access is not enough to keep unwanted visitors out. The same aspect applies to the security they have placed to guard the beaches. To speed up the process of beach detox, there is not really anything the government can do, other than pick up the bags when they wash up on the shore. Actively going out to sea and searching for them is too costly and would reap little success.
As of now, the French better get ready for the next great storming of their beaches since D-Day.
5 comments:
I feel that the French government really needs to take more control over the issue of cocaine literally washing up on its shores. The fact that a teenager can just drive up to the beach and take a bag of cocaine should be alarming enough, so I feel that the government should take more action than trusting regular citizens to willingly turnover bags of cocaine that could each be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Just closing the beaches without much enforcement isn’t really going to stop people from going out and hunting for valuable bags of cocaine that could easily find their way to the black market. These bags of cocaine could potentially be very dangerous, so I feel that the government should treat this as a health issue and at the very least place more security around the beaches to prevent people from just wandering in and taking the cocaine that washes ashore.
This situation is quite interesting, but I do feel as if the French government could be doing more to respond to the fact that cocaine is washing up on their shores. If anything, the increase of supply of cocaine would disrupt the black market for drugs as there would be a surplus of cocaine put into circulation but it would also lead to more drug usage. For a solution, the government could try to keep a closer watch on the beaches that are receiving cocaine because it would prevent the effects of letting citizens walk away with kilos of cocaine found on a beach. Also, to combat cocaine from continuing to wash up on their shores, it would be helpful to know where the cocaine is coming from and who is dumping it into the water.
I agree that the French government should definitely be stepping up and treating this like a serious health issue because it is. I think for the time being they should close the beaches that have the greatest amounts of cocaine washing up and enforce the closure with some kind of supervision/law enforcement until they can get the situation under control. Especially because this is happening at beaches where families visit, it would be really bad if a teenager, much less a little kid that might not even know what it is, got their hands on a bag of cocaine. I don’t really know what the underage drug usage situation is in France, but if this happened in the US, it would be escalating an already severe problem and should be taken seriously.
Lol, bruh. "Storming of their beaches". That was funny. Talk about a gold rush. Am I the only one so unbelievably curious about how the bags of cocaine got to the beach in the first place? Why would someone dump out thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and if so, was it done willingly or necessitated by circumstance? Was it being transported and shipwrecked or maybe cast overboard? Hmmmm...I must admit that I've probably been watching way too many TV Shows.
This is a very interesting case. The article had already stated that these the amount provided in each package can be dangerous enough to cause overdoses. This and the fact that a teenager had already stolen a couple grams brings to mind what would happen if a these packages of cocaine ended up in a child’s hand. The French government is not taking this seriously given that they still haven’t discovered the origin of these bags. Furthermore, as stated above, this is easily be sold on the black market to damage the overall health and security of the country. Additionally, these packages are also showing up further north, suggesting the necessity to examine and investigate closely as well as shut down specific beaches for the safety of the public.
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