From Opium to Fentanyl: Drug Smuggling, Canada, and Enforcement Challenges

• Author: Stephen Schneider
• Profession: Professor, Department of Criminology, St. Mary's University
• Pages: 399-421

399

seventeen

From Opium to Fentanyl: Drug Smuggling,

Canada, and Enforcement Challenges

STEPHEN SCHNEIDER*

A. INTRODUCTION

Smuggling that crosses national borders has come to epitomize trans-

national crime, while organized drug smuggling has come to epitomize

transnational organized crime. With that said, smuggling is inextricably

tied to numerous other organized crimes. As Kleemans writes, “many

protable criminal activities boil down to international smuggling activ-

ities — drug tracking, smuggling illegal immigrants, human tracking

for sexual exploitation, arms tracking, tracking in stolen vehicles.”

Transnational smuggling has also helped expose the signicant lim-

itations of transnational law enforcement, given that criminal laws and

justice systems are conned within the boundaries of individual nation-

states. Notwithstanding UN-brokered international conventions that have

forged criminal justice standards among Member States to address the

smuggling and tracking of drugs and people, there appears to be little

appetite among most countries to enact a system of binding transnational

laws and enforcement agencies, due to concerns they will compromise a

nation’s sovereignty.

* Professor, Department of Criminology, St. Mary’s University.

 Edward R. Kleemans, “eoretical Perspectives on Organized Crime” in Letizia

Paoli, ed, e Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, )  at  [Oxford Handbook].

 

400

e purpose of this essay is to examine transnational drug smuggling

aecting Canada as a case study for the inherent enforcement challenges

that many countries face in combatting crimes that cross their national

borders. Canada is a signatory to relevant United Nations conventions,

has specic oences concerning drug smuggling, as well as federal agen-

cies dedicated to border enforcement and criminal investigations. How-

ever, these criminal justice policies, institutions, and processes have had

little lasting impact on the scope of drug smuggling into and out of this

country.

Indeed, all available metrics indicate that the problem has progres-

sively worsened throughout the post–World War II period: the volume of

drugs smuggled across Canadian borders has soared, the payloads of indi-

vidual shipments have progressively become larger, and there is a wider

variety of drugs being illegally brought into the country. e production

of marijuana and synthetic drugs in Canada means it is now an exporter of

illicit substances, while federal enforcement agencies must guard against

the illegal importation of chemicals used in the domestic production of

methamphetamine and MDMA (ecstasy). e introduction of the syn-

thetic opioid fentanyl into the black market has helped feed a larger public

health crisis stemming from the abuse of both licit and illicit opioids.

 Mia Dauvergne, Trends in Police-Reported Drug Oences in Canada (Ottawa:

Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, ); Stephen Schneider,

Canadian Organized Crime (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, ) [Schneider

]; Public Safety Canada,  Law Enforcement Roundtable on Drugs (),

online: www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/-lw-nfrcmnt-rndtbl-drgs/

index-en.aspx; CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency Seizures (), online:

www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/security-securite/seizure-saisie-eng.html.

 According to Health Canada, there were , apparent opioid toxicity deaths in

Canada between January  and March . ere were , apparent opioid

toxicity deaths between January and March  (approximately twenty deaths

per day), representing a  percent increase compared to January to March 

(, deaths). Since the onset of the COVID- pandemic, , apparent opioid

toxicity deaths occurred (April  to March ), representing an  percent

increase over the same period prior to the pandemic (April  to March :

, deaths). “Numerous factors have likely contributed to a worsening of the

overdose crisis, including the increasingly toxic drug supply, increased feelings of

isolation, stress and anxiety and limited availability or accessibility of services for

people who use drugs.” Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid

Overdoses, Opioid- and Stimulant-Related Harms in Canada (), online:

https://health-infobase.canada.ca/substance-related-harms/opioids-stimulants.