TIGHT BORDER SECURITY SLOWS TRAFFICKING

Discourages Shipments

The week-long war against terrorism declared by George W. Bush, the U.S.
president, seems to have inadvertently done more to hurt drug lords than
most initiatives his father enacted in his 10-year-old war on drugs.

An unexpected benefit of the enhanced security efforts at borders and
airports following the Sept. 11 hijackings and suicide dives is a
curtailment in illicit drug shipments into the country, police and custom
officials said.

"If Canada and the U.S. had put the kind of effort into stopping the drug
trade as they've ploughed into confiscating nail-clippers at the airport
this week, we'd be hearing a lot less from both the drug cartels and the
street pushers," said a police officer who has been investigating drug
cases for about 15 years. Because of the public sensitivity over the
bombings, he did not want his name printed.

While there is no statistical evaluation comparing the volume of drugs
flowing into Canada last week to other periods, police officers and customs
officials suspect there is a sharp reduction.

"It will certainly not be business as usual for the drug importers. It's
cramping their style," said RCMP Staff Sergeant Bill Matheson, Commander of
Toronto Airport Drug Enforcement Unit.

"They'll sit back and wait to see what is going on at the airports and
borders, see what the weaknesses are now. They'll be sitting down, putting
their heads together and thinking things through -- until the new security
systems put in place get to be known and importers find their way around
them, like they always do," he said.

He said the RCMP's drug officers welcome the increased border security, not
only to protect citizens from terrorist attack but for making life more
difficult for drug importers.

Detective Sergeant David Brownell, head of Toronto police's major drug
section, said the stepped-up searching will discourage major importers from
initiating shipments.

"Generally, when you're dealing with imported drugs, people only attempt to
ship what they can afford to lose. They will send five shipments off
expecting to loose a percentage of them to scrutiny," said Det. Sgt. Brownell.

The percentages have tilted too far away from the drug lords right now, he
said.

Mark Butler, a spokesman for Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, said agents
looking for possible security risks will undoubtedly be uncovering more
contraband, although it is not the focus of the searches. "With the
increased vigilance, anything that is there to be found will be found much
more readily," he said.

A similar phenomenon was observed when cattle in Europe faced an epidemic
of foot and mouth disease, and government agents increased scrutiny of
mailed packages from Europe, looking for animal products that might carry
the contagion.

"There was a significant increase in seizures of certain types of drugs
that are mailed into the country, specifically Ecstasy and marijuana," said
Det. Sgt. Brownell.

There has been no observable jump in the street price of drugs, but a
short-term increase is likely. The drug trade will soon overcome the
difficulty, the officers said.

"Unfortunately, where you are going to benefit from the upside of increased
security, the criminal mind is always flexible and they will start to place
an increased emphasis on drugs they can manufacture locally," said Det.
Sgt. Brownell.

Staff Sgt. Matheson agreed any reduced supply will soon be filled.

"For sure they are not going to stop forever," he said. "Historically, we
have seen that when you stop one way of smuggling drugs it doesn't take
long before they find another."