REPORT CITES CANADA AS GROWING SOURCE OF ILLICIT DRUGS IN U.S.

Canada has emerged as an increasingly important exporter and transit
point for illicit drugs -and partly to blame is the "easy-topenetrate"
border, a senior drugs-monitoring official warned Wednesday at the
United Nations.

The statement by Melvyn Levitsky of the International Narcotics
Control Board comes as Canada is working to resist demands by some
members of the U.S. Congress to apply stronger checks along the border.

"The Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have
done a good professional job (in combating drug trafficking), but the
market in the United States is a big one, and the border is a peaceful
border which is relatively easy to penetrate," Levitsky told Postmedia
News.

Canada's standing in the international league of illicit
drug-trafficking countries is detailed in the North American section
of the board's 2010 annual report, which Levitsky presented at a news
conference.

INCB is the independent and quasi-judicial control organ for the
implementation of the United Nations drug conventions.

The report says Canada is self-sufficient in illicit cannabis
production, but also provides the United States with a "significant
amount" of the homegrown cannabis, some of which is traded for
"cocaine and other contraband, such as firearms and tobacco."

Canada also supplies a "significant share" of the international market
for methamphetamine. And it continues to be a "major source"
internationally of MDMA, a party drug whose street name is ecstasy.
Beyond production, INCB says Canada is "increasingly being used as a
transit country for cocaine."

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, whose ministry is the umbrella group
for the government's anti-trafficking efforts, and Public Safety
Minister Vic Toews were unavailable for comment, but their
spokespeople said officials had started to study the report.

"Our government is committed to working with the Obama administration
to keep our shared border open to trade and investment, but closed to
threats to our mutual safety and security," said Chris McCluskey,
spokesman for Toews.

Among the latest Canadian government initiatives are one that would
impose mandatory sentences on traffickers, and another aimed at
improving policing on either side of border waterways.

"If passed in its entirety," McCluskey said of the waterways bill,
"this legislation would allow law enforcement from Canada and the U.S.
to pursue and arrest criminals regardless of whose side of our shared
waterway they are on."