Although it borders our home state of New Mexico, I’d never heard of Gaines County, Texas, or its County seat, the town of Seminole — until the two became the epicenter of a major current outbreak of measles.
Gaines County is home to a traditional Mennonite community, one where childhood vaccination is treated with suspicion. That has resulted in plenty of new measles cases, mostly among children, and finally, the first fatality in the US in many years.
The victim was a 6 year-old girl.
More on the story:
West Texans, Mennonites at center of measles outbreak choose medical freedom over vaccine mandates
But that’s not all: It turns out that the local Mennonite community in Seminole has also been a regular stop on a drug smuggling route that runs from northern Mexico all the way to Canada. The smugglers: Yep, other Mennonites. They come from a sister community south of the border.
Drug trafficking isn’t something we normally associate with old-school religious sects who follow strict principles. But according to author Sam Quinones, whose 2015 best-seller Dreamland explored the origins of the opioid epidemic, it’s a very real phenomenon.
Mennonites, Drug Trafficking, and Measles
A quote from Sam’s Substack article: “…a sizable number of seemingly pious, religious Old World German Mennonite farmers, in overalls and straw hats and making nationally known cheese, were, in fact, traffickers aligned with the notorious Juarez Drug Cartel…” Their cars and trucks (no more horse and buggy for them) pass easily through US checkpoints on the way north.
Quinones notes that the sect teaches its members that they are among God’s chosen people, and therefore obedient to a higher authority than mere human laws. Still, it’s hard to imagine how they reconcile strict Bible teachings with trafficking drugs for, well, profit.
On the other hand, Islamic doctrine is (literally) death on drug use, yet Muslim farmers continue to produce much of the world’s opium. How do they reconcile the two?
I won’t guess. But it does appear that the human capacity for greed and self-deceit is endless.
