A southern U.S. border wall could lead to more drugs in Canada, says expert

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With U.S. President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency in in an effort to build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a security expert says the move could mean drug dealers turning to the northern border to get their products into the States.

The United States is just too lucrative a market, according to former CSIS agent Michel Juneau-Katsuya.

“Are you going to let go of such a lucrative business? No. You’ll simply find alternatives. You adapt. They adapt very, very well. Most of the time, they have even greater means than the authorities because the authorities are entangling themselves with rules and regulations.”

He says like any business entrepreneur, drug dealers are going to find a way to sell their product.

“In B.C., you might have more deaths of overdose because of the increase in drugs that will be coming, to try to compensate for the shortage in the U.S. Because eventually, the destination is supposed to be the U.S. but they leave it a little bit everywhere along the way.”

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He notes South American drugs coming through Canada is nothing new. “Those routes have been established in the past, as well. It’s always been exploited this way. We might see increased traffic because of the wall.”

He says criminal organizations have generally started to work together — rather than fight each other — in recent decades.

“The old belief of turf war and stuff like that — it occasionally remains, in some cases. But most of the time … they will be seeking to cooperate rather than neutralize or be a nuisance to each other.”

Juneau-Katsuya worries police on the street will be ill-equipped to handle a sudden influx of drugs, and that politicians will take a long time to adapt and make policy changes.

“The police officers on the ground will feel that, will sense that. But at the same time, their requests are going to probably be ignored by politicians and their superior officers simply because there’s only so much money we will have to work with. That’s a challenge.”

He believes rather than a police state, governments need to re-think their approach to drug enforcement.

“If you do not have the political will to work differently at the problem … Let’s take the last 100 years. It doesn’t work the way we’ve been at it. We’ve got to do better.”

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