Welcome to Saltwater Cowboys

Thank you for visiting my website. You’re probably asking yourself what a Saltwater Cowboy is! Let me answer by saying that my name is Tim McBride and I am a former marijuana smuggler turned drug educator from Southwest Florida. The name Saltwater Cowboy was given to me by members of my smuggling crew and from friends who knew I was a smuggler.

It all started when one of my smuggling jobs involved a rendezvous with a large offshore vessel loaded with 45,000 pounds of Colombian marijuana below deck, and 150+ head of cattle above deck. The cattle were used as a cover for the vessel's true cargo. But in order for the vessel's captain to unload his cargo into my boat, he had to herd the cattle off the stern of his boat and into the Gulf of Mexico. We were shocked at what we were seeing!

The first time we saw this guy and his crew I thought that, up until then, I had witnessed every possible way pot could be smuggled to this country. And believe me, I have done and seen some crazy things in the many years I had been smuggling, but this absolutely took the cake.

I yelled “what the hell are you doing?” up at the captain on deck and he yelled back, “can’t get the stuff off the boat with all of these cows in the way!”. He was thinking, "who needs the cattle when you’re making millions of dollars hauling pot?"

We had used this guy and his crew once before and, needless to say, we didn’t use him again for two reasons. One, the poor damn cows! And two, we couldn't have them washing up on the beaches of Southwest Florida again. But after having told the offloading crew onshore and a few of my friends in town that we had just unloaded another boatload of cattle offshore, the jokes about being cowboys began. From then on we were dubbed the “Saltwater Cowboys.”

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All my life I’ve seen what drugs do to children, young adults and to adults. The war on drugs has been a battle since President Nixon declared it in 1971. Over $50 billion a year has been spent on this war. Right now there are over 1 million nonviolent drug offenders in American prisons and even more violent drug offenders. To this day, nearly 40 years later, we are still not even close to winning it and this is a war taking place in our own country!

NOW I’M DECLARING A WAR OF MY OWN!!! I intend to use my own life story and my own personal history of drug smuggling, greed, drug abuse and prison to educate and touch people’s lives in a positive way rather than the negative way I did for so many years. I’m giving a whole new meaning to the name “Saltwater Cowboys!”

My mission is to educate this generation and the next on how to resist the voice inside them saying "hey I’ll give it a try, once can’t hurt me" or "my friends are, why not?" This happens because they have no idea, at all, how it will affect them now and most importantly, in their future.

I intend to show you through my example just how it will affect you socially, physically and mentally. How it will affect your ability to make the best choices about your life when these choices present themselves to you.

I need your help in making this mission a true life story for everyone. Help me to help the future of our children - the next leaders of our country and our world. To shut down the smugglers, the dealers, the growers and the manufacturers by refusing to ruin our lives by using their illegal drugs. With this way, they will have no one to supply because America and the world will have no demand.

I invite you and all your friends to enlist in my army and become the Saltwater Cowboys and the Saltwater Cowgirls now and for the future. Our communities, our country and our world is asking for our help. They need us, and I NEED YOU!