UN BLASTS CANADA FOR HYPOCRISY ON DRUG TRADE

(UNITED NATIONS) --- Frustrated by its inability to convince Canada to
comply with international drug-control agreements, the United Nations
today exposed the federal government for its negligence and hypocrisy
in the worldwide fight against illegal narcotics.

Canada has become a haven for illicit drug manufacturers and
traffickers, thanks to Ottawa's failure to fully implement the
agreements, a UN report shows.

Ottawa still has not implemented "basic provisions" of an important
narcotics control treaty that became Canadian law 13 years ago, nor
has it honoured commitments made at the UN General Assembly's 1998
special session on the world drug problem, the report says.

"We have spent more than a decade meeting with the Canadian health
authorities, foreign affairs people, and representatives at the
Canadian embassy in Austria to discuss these matters," said Herbert
Schaepe, secretary of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board,
the Vienna-based agency that compiled the report.

"We have written dozens of confidential letters, asked numerous
questions and tried to work with Canada through silent diplomacy. We
have been told that the only way to deal with Canada is to go public.
That is what we are doing."

The report also shows that Canadian sites on the Internet have become
the world's leading one-stop shopping centre for cultivators of "very
potent" varieties of cannabis -- beating out even the Netherlands, a
notoriously drug-tolerant country.

In addition, production of the drug in Canada for domestic consumption
and export to the United States poses "major problems."

Finally, the report blasts Canada for failing to conduct a
comprehensive cross-country survey of drug abuse since 1994, leaving
drug enforcement agencies and social workers in the dark about the
extent of the problem.

"With Canada, things are not working as they should," Mr. Schaepe
said.

"How can we tell South American countries that they must make a
greater effort to control drugs if a rich country like Canada is not
even implementing the most basic provisions of its treaty
obligations?"

In preparation for the 1998 General Assembly session, Andy Scott, then
Canada's solicitor-general, promised: "Canada will promote an active
and balanced approach to international anti-drug co-operation."

That same year, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, told the
Summit of the Americas: "We want to work in very close
collaboration to make sure that the production and the
consumption of drugs will go down in all parts of the Americas."

At that summit, Canada even committed itself to hosting a major
conference on drug issues and boasted about being elected to chair the
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission.

"Canada appears to be very active on many fronts, but unfortunately
this does not correspond to real action," Mr. Schaepe said.

His agency reports annually on developments in the world's illicit
drug trade, revealing which countries are co-operating with
international controls and which are not. Criticism is usually
reserved for countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are major
producers of illicit drugs.

But the lambasting of Canada comes as no surprise to drug enforcement
officers both in Canada and the United States, which the report
identifies as the recipient of large amounts of Canadian-grown
cannabis -- North America's "favourite drug of abuse."

"Law enforcement co-operation between the two countries is excellent,
but we would like to see parliamentarians tighten up some of Canada's
laws," said one special agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA). "We have a very porous border."

The report says U.S.-bound Canadian cannabis is hydroponically grown
at indoor sites located mainly in Western Canada and Quebec.

A 1998 DEA intelligence brief identifies home-grown Canadian varieties
of the drug as "BC Bud" and "Quebec Gold," and says exports of both to
the United States are "burgeoning."

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs says the amount of marijuana seized at the
British Columbia-Washington border jumped from 10 pounds in 1994 to
2,613 pounds in 1998.

"The federal government is not showing the necessary leadership to
help us get rid of drugs," said RCMP Staff Sergeant Chuck Doucette,
chief of the Mounties' drug awareness program in British Columbia.

"We need a drug czar who will make statements that reflect what we are
saying at the street level, currently without any support from above."

The treaty Canada has neglected to fully implement is the 1971
Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

Ratified by Parliament in 1987, the convention calls for all
international trade in tranquilizers, hallucinogens such as sleeping
and slimming pills, and drugs that treat anorexia to be reported to
the UN's narcotics control board.

"From Canada there is just a big, black hole," Mr. Schaepe said. "We
don't know what is going into the country, nor coming out. We cannot
monitor the international movement of these substances, which is our
mandate.

"The lack of controls in Canada means that they could be destined for
fake companies that will divert them into the hands of traffickers.
Traffickers in third countries could be getting them through Canada."

The report says the "board notes with disappointment the slow progress
made in Canada" in controlling these drugs.

"Normally, Canada has a very good reputation for fulfilling its
international obligations, but here it is just breaking the treaty --
a treaty that it ratified a long time ago," Mr. Schaepe said. "It is
very disturbing."

The report also charges that Canada is not "participating effectively"
in international efforts to control trade in "precursors" -- chemicals
and other substances used in the production of drugs such as heroin
and cocaine.

"There are some controls, but they are not in line with the General
Assembly's action plan on precursor control which we note Canada fully
supported in 1998 [at the special session]," Mr. Schaepe said.

Internet sites selling cannabis seeds and equipment for cannabis
cultivation are "located primarily on servers in Canada," says the
report.

"These are not seeds for bird feed," explains Mr. Schaepe. "And they
have no medical use; the advertising says they will produce cannabis
with high THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] content" -- a reference to the
drug's potency.

The sites promote indoor cultivation of cannabis, 60% of which is
smuggled south of the border, according to the U.S. State Department.

"There is an urgent need for action required to counter the spread of
such cultivation," says the report.

Seed vendors use Canada as a base "for a reason," Mr. Schaepe said.
"We are not excluding lax drug enforcement laws as that reason."

Possession of cannabis is illegal in Canada without a medical
dispensation permit from the health minister. But jail terms for
producers and traffickers are light compared with punishments meted
out in the United States.

"If I were a drug trafficker, I would rather be caught in Canada than
the U.S.," said Sergeant Gilles Michaud, a Montreal-based RCMP drug
enforcement spokesman. "That's why they are here."