Tropical islanders getting hooked on washed-up cocaine

[emad]

By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 06/05/2005)

For centuries the sea sustained the Marshall Islands, yielding fish to eat and contact with explorers and traders in one of the loneliest parts of the Pacific.

But the residents of the tiny tropical nation are now struggling to deal with an entirely unexpected ocean bounty: a huge consignment of cocaine.

Last March dozens of packets of the drug washed up on the palm-fringed beaches of Ebeye, one of more than 1,000 coral islands which make up the Marshall Islands.

The neatly-wrapped bricks, which police believe were dumped overboard by drug runners fleeing the US Coast Guard, weighed 60lb and were seized by the authorities.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/06/wcoke06.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/05/06/ixportal.html