Hilary Sheppard - Drug Trafficking in National Parks

As one of my outside reading sources, I read the article "Weed Wacking" from the March/April 2006 issue of Sierra. The article discusses the current issue of drug trafficking within U.S. national parks. When I read the abstract for the article, I was extremely intrigued because I was not aware that this was an issue in national parks. These drug trafficking operations are draining the resources of the national parks, and although they have been around for a while, they have grown increasingly worse since border controls were tightened after September 11th. Sequoia and Kings Canyon in California have been the most effected parks, with 2 known Mexican drug cartels operating out of the parks and 44,000 marijuana plants found in the parks in 2004. These operations have huge negative effects on the parks, including clearing out native plant life, diverting water sources, and poaching animals. Once the operations are discovered, it is extremely costly to clean up the mess. The biggest fear associated with this problem is the chance that a park visitor accidentally runs into an armed drug smuggler and is hurt. This article was extremely surprising to me because all sorts of drugs are being trafficked in parks all over the country, from California to Maine. There parks are supposed to by set aside to protect nature, and some aspects of this may even be sacred to some, but the drug traffickers are ruining the purpose of the parks