CANADA A MAJOR SOURCE FOR WORLD'S ILLICIT DRUGS: REPORT

Oh, Canada. Thy home of meth and X.

In a United Nations report released yesterday, Canadian drug lords
were painted as sharing their patriot love for synthetic drugs such as
methamphetamine and Ecstasy with nations around the world, making
Canada a major trafficking hub in today's trans-national market.

But this comes as no surprise to local law enforcement, who have seen
an increasing number of clandestine labs producing much more
amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) than our domestic market can hold.

If you can judge the amount of drugs in a country by the amount of
drugs that are seized -- which is partly what the UN Office on Drugs
and Crime has done -- our famed home-grown Cannabis isn't as worrisome
as ATS on a global scale.

In 2007, the fourth most amount of "Ecstasy-group substances," such as
MDMA, was seized in Canada, making up 12% of global seizures.

We were sixth for amphetamines, with 4% of the world share; 11th for
Cannabis, with 0.9%; and 22nd for cocaine, with 0.4%. "Canada-based
organized crime groups' participation in the methamphetamine trade has
grown significantly since 2003," the 2009 World Drug Report notes.
There were 1.82 metric tons of meth seized in Canada between 1998 and
2007 -- 85% of that was from 2007 alone.

By 2006, intelligence agencies noted that Asian crime syndicates and
outlaw motorcycle gangs in Canada increased the amount of meth and
exported primarily to the United States, but also to Oceania and East
and Southeast Asia, the report said.

In Australia, Canadian meth accounted for 83% of their total seized
imports by weight ; in Japan, it accounted for 62%, the report said.

While Canada was only exporting 5% of its home-made meth in 2006, that
number shot to 20% the next year.

By 2007 -- the year that much of this report is based on -- about half
of the Canadian-born Ecstasy was thought to be exported, mostly to the
U.S., Australia and Japan. Canada was identified as "the single
biggest source" of Ecstasy seized in Japan.

In recent years, American authorities clamped down on the movement of
precursor chemicals -- namely ephedrine and pseudoephedrine -- used to
make drugs like methamphetamine, which is much more addictive than,
but often disguised as Ecstasy.

This effectively pushed much of the domestic production north to
Canada and south to Mexico, UN Office on Drugs and Crime executive
director Antonio Maria Costa said.

In 2003, Canada implemented Precursor Control Regulations to address
the need to control chemicals like ephedrine.

"By the time those regulations came in, it was too late," said RCMP
Sgt. Brent Hill, the officer in charge of Ontario's chemical diversion
unit.

"We already had organized crime groups well established."

"The tell-tale signs were pretty obvious back in the late 1990s, early
2000 that synthetic drugs were going to be a wave of the future," Hill
said.

Working closely with the chemical industry, Hill's unit keeps an eye
on who is buying what and trains industry staff to watch out for those
who want ephedrine for something other than the sniffles. But the
illegal drug industry in Canada isn't just diverting chemicals through
legitimate means.

According to the UN report, Ecstasy labs found on Canadian soil in
2007 were "large-capacity facilities" controlled by Asian crime
syndicates using chemicals trafficked from overseas. And it's a
lucrative business.

"Think about this: A 25-kilogram drum of ephedrine fetches a price in
a drug lab of $150,000 to $250,000 .... In the legitimate world, it's
only worth $1,400," Hill said. "That's the wake-up call that wow,
you've got a problem."

Last year alone, police announced the dismantling of an international
crime network responsible for more than $100 million worth of cocaine,
meth and Ecstasy being moved from the Toronto area to Australia; cops
raided what was believed to be the biggest meth operation ever in the
GTA -- then uncovered a large Ecstasy lab within the same Mississauga
industrial complex; and the White House warned that Canadian criminals
were dumping meth-laced Ecstasy on the American market to drive up
demand.

"I'm going to suggest to you that the majority of synthetic drugs
being produced in Canada is for export," Hill said. "We do not have
the base, the consumer base to even remotely think about consuming the
illicit drugs that are being produced in this country.

"The level of cooperation amongst the criminal element is at an
all-time high. So yeah, the drugs itself are produced for export, but
the crime, the Canadian-based criminal enterprises, work on an
international stage when it comes down to the marketing of these drugs.

They produce for a good reason: To make money. Out the door, multiple
countries, make a lot of money in doing it."

Tackling such a problem will require "more troops on the ground" and
cooperation from the highest levels of all governments, Hill said.

"We have to do some sobering reflection of what we have in place and
what other countries have in place and where is their problem at and
where is ours at? Why are we a source country? Why are we a leading
source country? That's not acceptable," he said.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said he worried the UN report
would send the message that Canada is a good place in which to do this
business.

"We have to send the exact opposite message," he said.

For the second time this week, Nicholson appealed to the opposition
Liberals in the Senate to pass Tory crime legislation that cracks down
on drug dealers and manufacturers, for example by establishing minimum
sentences.

Five years ago, Hill likely would have said Canadian crime syndicates
were gaining a steady foothold in synthetic drug production, he said.

"Today that's not the case. Because they're not gaining; they've
gained. They're well established and not going away too soon. We'll
have to deal with this matter for years to come."