Law enforcement officials fear they are seeing “a very high increase” in cocaine-related arrests and seizures across the Island in the past year, including four arrests made in the past two weeks. Simultaneously, local drug-treatment counselors say they are seeing disturbing levels of people seeking treatment for cocaine use and addiction.
Oak Bluffs Chief of Police Jonathan Searle sees reason to believe an ongoing cocaine problem echoes a prevalence not seen since the 1980s and 1990s, and, in his personal experience there seems to be an increase that has occurred over the last few years on Martha’s Vineyard.
“We are seeing less of the heroin and fentanyl now, and more cocaine again,” said Searle. “There’s definitely a resurgence, and there is a risk, as we do see some [cocaine] is cut with fentanyl.”
The rise in cocaine arrests on the Island appears to be a part of a broader rise in arrests and cocaine usage across the Cape and Islands, with the Cape and Islands branch of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) assisting the Island’s local departments in multiple arrests in the past year, and Nantucket reporting higher averages of cocaine in its wastewater than the rest of the country.
Searle said the rising number of arrests on-Island may also be the result of an increase of investigations into the activity. “The upper-level, dangerous dealers are our focus,” he said.
In the past year alone, multiple large-scale cocaine-trafficking attempts have been thwarted by local, state, and federal law enforcement efforts, with recent arrests and seizures. One dramatic case included a March 2025 federal sting operation, assisted by the Martha’s Vineyard Drug Task Force and Oak Bluffs Police, which linked Island residents to Primeiro Comando da Capital — a transnational criminal organization that started in the prison system of São Paulo in Brazil, and is known for committing violent crimes like murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and transnational drug trafficking.
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