OFF THE WIRE
Tonda MacCharles
thestar.com
The United States pegs Canadian-produced high-potency marijuana and ecstasy that is often cut with impure and potentially deadly chemicals as “the most significant Canadian drug threats to the United States.”
DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTOOTTAWA—The United States launched a new offensive Friday in its war on drugs, targeting Canadian marijuana and ecstasy traffic flow across its northern border.
President Barack Obama’s drug czar at the Office of National Drug Control Policy released an 80-page paper outlining the National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy, which calls for more and smarter policing efforts on both sides of the border.
It pegs Canadian-produced high-potency marijuana and ecstasy that is often cut with impure and potentially deadly chemicals as “the most significant Canadian drug threats to the United States.”
Canada, it says, is the prime source of ecstasy in North America, and the U.S. is the primary source of South American cocaine into Canada.
Methamphetamine (meth) and heroin “pose much lesser threats to each country,” according to case reports and limited northbound and southbound seizures, but the paper says greater efforts are needed to stem the flow of “B.C. bud” and ecstasy southward, and the flow of cocaine north.
The strategy calls for:
•Better coordination of intelligence collection among U.S. federal, state, local, tribal and Canadian law enforcement agencies.
•More security at and between ports of entry to boost seizures of illicit narcotics and drug proceeds.
•More air and maritime “awareness and response capabilities” along the Canadian border.
•More resources and training opportunities for tribal law enforcement agencies to battle the influx of drugs across the aboriginal territories in upstate New York.
•More efforts to target gangs’ “financial infrastructure” — and their use of money-service businesses to launder drug money.
•Increased judicial cooperation with the government of Canada.
The report identifies major ethnic groups behind the transshipment of drugs, saying most are based in B.C., Quebec and Ontario.
“Ethnic Chinese groups are primarily responsible for the production of ecstasy in Canada” while “Asian criminal groups, particularly those of Vietnamese descent, are the primary operators of (marijuana) grows in western Canada (British Columbia) and the western United States (California, Washington).”
It says “ethnic Indian and Caucasian growers and criminal groups with ties to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club” are also major grow operators or distributors.
“Canadian-based Irish and Italian organized crime and those with ties to Hells Angels Motorcycle Club” are involved in marijuana production and smuggling in Ontario, Quebec and the eastern United States (upstate New York and northern New England).
The report cites the challenges of stemming illegal drug traffic at the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation that straddles the Canada-U.S. border along the St. Lawrence River, and in the Pacific Northwest, where Mexican drug traffickers are taking advantage of Washington reservations and tribal members.
The report characterizes the current North America illegal drug market as driven by big profits, but shifting as Asian gangs move to set up indoor grow-ops in the U.S. as well.
It says demand in the U.S. for illicit drugs increased slightly in 2010 over 2009, but in Canada, drug use has decreased from 2004 to 2009.
“An estimated 22.6 million Americans (8.9 percent) aged 12 or older were current users of illicit drugs in 2010. The rate of use was similar to the rate in 2009 (8.7 percent),” according to the report.
Meanwhile, in Canada, “in 2009, the prevalence of use of at least one of six drugs (including cannabis, cocaine or crack, speed, ecstasy, hallucinogens in the past-year was approximately 2.8 million Canadians (11 per cent) aged 15 or older. This represents a decline from the rate of use reported in 2004, at 14.5 per cent.”
In a statement, Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy, said overall drug use in the United States “has dropped substantially” over the past 30 years, “including cocaine use, dropped by 40 percent, and meth use in America has been cut by half.” He said the Obama administration has committed more than $10 billion for drug prevention programs and expanding access to drug treatment for addicts.
Despite harsh penalties for drug crime in the U.S. the illicit drug market is profitable and people take all kinds of chances: last March, a female U.S. citizen traveled by bus from Canada via Buffalo, New York and was arrested after she was discovered to have strapped 34,000 Ecstasy tablets to her body “to appear as if she were pregnant.”
The report identifies a “nexus” between marijuana and ecstasy smuggling from Canada, and cocaine transiting the United States into Canada, saying gangs are trading quantities of marijuana and ecstasy for cocaine supplies.
“The cocaine sells for approximately $25,000 to $28,000 per kilogram in the United States, and approximately $38,000 to $43,000 per kilogram in Canada.”
The report says in some cases Canadian drug dealers are exchanging drugs for weapons in the U.S. and smuggling them back into Canada, but acknowledges that weapons smuggling into the U.S. from Canada “is minimal” compared to its southern border Mexico.
Asked about illegal drug-running in and out of aboriginal reserves, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews had little comment Friday other than to say the RCMP, OPP and other police forces are engaged in operations to counter illicit drug traffic along aboriginal territories.
Julie Carmichael, spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, told the Star that the Conservative government “firmly believes that our border should be open to legitimate travel and trade but closed to criminals and illicit drugs. That’s why President Obama and Prime Minister Harper signed the Border Action Plan.”
She said the government has “invested significant funds to strengthen our border” and will “continue to cooperate” with U.S. authorities.
