HOW MANY DRUGS GET OVER BORDER?

Federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day praised border officials
Monday for a seizure at the Blue Water Bridge of suspected cocaine
worth $4.7 million.

The magnitude of the haul 37 kilograms (82 pounds) hidden in a
transport truck carrying auto parts showed that the Canada Border
Services Agency is "keeping drugs off our streets and out of our
communities," Day said.

The local officers, aided by a gamma-ray inspection system and a
detector dog, did indeed do an excellent job.

But we're skeptical of the claim that one bust, however large, puts
much of a dent in the drug trade.

Ironically, the bridge report appeared the same day as a Port Huron
Times Herald story about a marijuana seizure in Marysville, Mich.

In that case, two men were charged after being caught unloading 120
pounds of marijuana on a dock in the St. Clair River.

Importing coke and exporting pot is not what we envisioned when Canada
and the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Deal. But the
coincidence is a reminder that the river between Sarnia and Walpole
Island has been a smuggler's paradise since at least the Prohibition
era.

And it isn't just drugs. Everything from illegal immigrants to guns to
jewellery have been seized from smugglers unlucky enough to get caught
over the past few years.

The sad reality is that drugs and other contraband will continue flow
over the border in both directions as long as there are people
prepared to buy them.

One truck had 82 pounds of cocaine. But on a busy day, 20,000 vehicles
and 6,000 commercial trucks roll crossing the Blue Water Bridge.

How many vehicles are carrying illegal goods? How many boats? One can
only wonder.