Springdale is Dead Center in Arkansas’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area

Springdale, Arkansas is dead center in a section of Arkansas that has been designated a component of the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). This means that this region has a sufficiently pronounced drug trafficking problem to warrant additional personnel and funds to combat it.

Springdale straddles the county line between Benton County to the north and Washington County to the south. These two counties make up the northwest corner of Arkansas and are the only two counties in this part of Arkansas to be part of the HIDTA. This corner of Arkansas is the also second most populous region in the state. Its population continues to grow at a fast rate, expanding from about 46,000 in 2000 to 70,000 in 2010.

Springdale in particular is home to large manufacturing plants, such as Tyson, the chicken and meat packing company; Kawneer, a subsidiary of Alcoa Alumium; Rockline Industries, maker of paper products; Newly Wed Foods and several others. Each of these companies requires trucking to deliver their products and so Arkansas has a huge trucking industry to match their manufacturing and food processing. In Arkansas, one in thirteen people works in the trucking industry.

Businesses Attract Ethnic Groups but Also Let Drug Traffickers Conceal Their Activities

Ethnic groups are attracted to – and are often specifically recruited by – large meat packing plants in the Midwest and South, and Springdale is home to several national companies. A decade or two ago, Asians moved into the area to work in these plants. But now, the primary ethnic group being added to the employment rolls by these plants is Hispanic. As a result, more than 35 percent of Springdale residents are now Hispanic, an increase of 174 percent since the 2000 Census.

What these completely innocent factors mean is that it is easy for not-so-innocent Mexican drug traffickers and their shipments to blend right into this environment that has packages and trucks moving up and down the highways to all the nearby major cities: Kansas City, Tulsa, Memphis, St. Louis, Jackson and Dallas.

Unfortunately, drugs being moved through the area also mean that there are supplies for local consumption.

Most of the drugs moved into the area are the responsibility of Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) who are trafficking a diverse supply of drugs these days: methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine (some of which is made into crack cocaine), small amounts of heroin and prescription drugs. Drug busts involving sizeable groups of people working together, some of them Mexican citizens but residents of Arkansas, are not uncommon.

In May 2011, four people were sentenced in northwest Arkansas for distributing meth. One of them was a Mexican citizen who was illegally in the US, who routinely received shipments of methamphetamine from Mexico. In June 2011, 14 people from Southern Missouri and the Springdale area were arrested, also for distributing methamphetamine. Four of those arrested were citizens of Mexico living in Arkansas.

Eliminating Drug Problem in the Area Requires More than Law Enforcement

Law enforcement alone will never be able to arrest enough people to wipe out the drug abuse and addiction problem in this city of 70,000 people. To serve these Arkansans and all the people living in rural areas around the city, there are only four Springdale drug rehabs. Only one of them, the Veterans Administration hospital, offers residential treatment but lists no addiction specialists on their staff. Two of the Springdale drug rehabs specialize in offering methadone or buprenorphine for addiction treatment, which means that further addictive drugs are given to people who wish to kick their addictions.

What people in this area who are looking for Springdale drug rehab need are choices. That is why www.arkansas-drugrehab.org was created. When Arkansas families are up against the addiction of one of their members, by contacting www.arkansas-drugrehab.org at 888-816-0667, they have the opportunity to discover their alternatives for drug rehab Springdale.

In some cases, it is best to move an addicted person out of the immediate area in which they were abusing drugs. That way, old drug-using friends and the drug dealer who does not want to lose a customer can’t readily reach them. This facilitates the recovery process, allowing the person to focus on recovery, not fending off a threat from their former drug dealers. Springdale drug rehab should be a positive experience, in which the recovering addict can focus completely on their drug-free future.

When drug rehab in Springdale is hard to find, www.arkansas-drugrehab.org can help you by accessing its database of more than 10,000 facilities in Arkansas and beyond. The recovery you seek can be yours. The staff at www.arkansas-drugrehab.org have helped thousands of people realize the dream of sobriety for themselves or a loved one and they can help you through the process of finding drug rehab in Springdale or outside the area.