Even though Canada is sending more and more of its illegal marijuana crop south of the border, it is still far from being America's chief supplier.

According to an annual assessment of the drug situation conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Criminal Intelligence Directorate, only a small fraction of pot sold in America has crossed the border from Canada.

Citing the latest seizure statistics, the RCMP says the amount smuggled in from Mexico makes the Canadian supply seem paltry.
Some 15,700 kilograms of pot were detected moving into the U.S. from Canada last year.

In contrast, more than 400,000 kilograms were seized at America's border with Mexico.
Nevertheless, the report calls the marijuana export business a "thriving industry," particularly in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. And the target markets, Mounties say, are just as likely other Canadian provinces as they are foreign countries.

But in the United States, there's a perception that Canada is a big exporter of illicit drugs, especially marijuana.

"This issue for us is that Canada has become a major supplier of certain drugs," said John Walters, the U.S. Drug Control Policy Director in December 2002.

"We are a big producer of marijuana in that we are bigger than we were in the past," said Ron Allen of the RCMP's Drug Squad. "Are we the biggest threat to the U.S.? By no means."

"There is a bit of a blame Canada mentality, I think. Let's blame Canada, let's blame external forces for the drug problem we've got in the United States," said Eugene Oscapella at the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy.

The inter-provincial trade is meeting a demand the report says is growing countrywide. Though rates of marijuana use in the general population have remained stable at approximately 23 per cent, the report notes figures are much higher among young people.

"Student surveys reflect much higher marijuana use rates: rates of past year use vary from 16 per cent to 38 per cent but are typically near 30 per cent."

Canada's second-most popular illicit drug, according to the report, is cocaine.

"However, there are indications that use of powdered cocaine and crack is decreasing," the report notes, highlighting a drop to 0.7 per cent of individuals reporting use at the time of the last survey in 1994. That was down from 1.4 per cent five years earlier.

Although the report estimates there are "between 25,000 to 50,000 hardcore heroin addicts in Canada consuming between one and two metric tonnes of heroin annually," the seizure rate is very low. Only 60 kilograms of heroin were seized in Canadian-related interdictions, the report says.

Among the report's other findings:

• seizures of the club drug Ecstacy near tripled last year
• methamphetamine, or speed, is "of increasing concern across the country." The report notes its use appears to be growing fastest among high school students
• cocaine is increasingly entering Canada aboard small pleasure or fishing boats, instead of marine containers, which are now being scrutinized for fear of a terror attack