wow! what a piece of journalism this is. you got my attention with the phrase "texas' obsession with underground drilling for natural gas" --- yep, it's true, we drill for gas underground because exploration for it above-ground has repeatedly failed to find any. i can't dispute the obsession part though: for the past 110 years, texans have definitely been obsessed with finding petroleum. but wait! then we get to the supposed point of this story. it is that "illegal narcotics" are flooding into the us. only it turns out the "illegal narcotics" are in fact "marijuana." jeez louise, wrong on both counts: marijuana is not a narcotic (this is police-speak), and its current legal status is simply an anomaly --- sorta like the jim crow laws we used to enforce against black people. lastly, 18,000 pounds of pot is not a "flood," it is a drop in the bucket of american demand for this amazing plant.