CANADA AN ILLICIT DRUG EXPORTER

Report Blames Lax Border

Canada has emerged as an increasingly important exporter and transit
point for illicit drugs -and partly to blame is the
"easy-to-penetrate" 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."

"Cocaine shortages persisted in many areas of the United States in
2009, as evidenced by higher prices and lower purity levels," the
report says. "Criminal groups are smuggling cocaine into Canada,
mainly through Mexico and the United States, to be sold on the illicit
market in Canada or shipped overseas."

Levitsky said cocaine traffickers clearly focused on Mexico and
Central America as transit hubs after seeing their transit operations
in the Caribbean progressively curtailed in years gone by. But the
relative ease with which they could cross the U.S.-Canada border also
made Canada a transit target.

"Traffickers do not just give up; they find new routes for doing
things," Levitsky said. While it is "principally Mexico" that supplies
the United States with cocaine, he added that Canada's "long border
has made it a supplier."

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 waterway 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."

INCB cites without comment the government's National Anti-Drug
Strategy, but highlights that Ottawa has made a "national priority" of
combating the illicit manufacture of synthetic drugs, since Canada is
a "major source" for them.

Canadian law enforcement officers seized more than 34 tons of cannabis
herb in 2009, a slight decrease over the previous year, according to
the report. It says the amount of cannabis seized at the border in
2009 increased slightly, to 3.4 tons.

The report notes the potency of illegally cultivated Canadian cannabis
is generally high since most is grown indoors.

Organized crime groups using clandestine laboratories produce "on a
large scale" most methamphetamine in Canada, the report says. It adds
that a "significant amount" ends up in East and Southeast Asia,
Oceania and Australia. Authorities shut down 23 of the laboratories in
2009 - more than double the 2008 figure.

The United States and East and Southeast Asia were destinations for
Canada's illegally produced ecstasy, while traffickers also use Canada
as both a destination and transit hub for the chemicals used to make
the drug, the report explains.