Loonie's rise spurring cocaine sales in Canada: drug experts

Influx of cheap cocaine seen in cities such as Vancouver, Ottawa

Last Updated: Monday, November 19, 2007 | 10:48 AM ET

CBC News

Cocaine traffickers appear to be reacting to the rise of the Canadian dollar and the fall of the U.S. greenback, preferring Canadian and European markets to those in the U.S., say drug experts and medical officials.

For the first time in years, many American cities seem to be experiencing a cocaine shortage while experts say some Canadian cities — including Vancouver and Ottawa — say they're seeing more cocaine than ever.

"The price has gone up, purity has gone down. That tells us they have less of their poison to peddle on our streets," U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Steve Robertson told CBC News on Friday.

Across the United States, fewer emergency patients are reporting cocaine use and there is also less cocaine in Americans' urine, said Dr. Barry Sample of Quest Diagnostics, America's biggest drug testing company.

"We've noticed an unprecedented decline in the positivity rates for cocaine tests, and it's at the lowest level since we started reporting in 1997," he said.

But the surest sign of cocaine scarcity south of the border is a 44 per cent increase in the street price across the United States, where a pure gram now averages about $137 US, said American drug enforcement officials.

Cocaine much cheaper in some Canadian cities

DEA officials said the large traffickers are turning away from the U.S. dollar, preferring to trade their cocaine for euros.

That's driven a surge of cocaine imports to Europe and evidence from the streets suggests the same thing may be happening in Canada.
 
Vancouver prices, for example, are substantially lower than those in the U.S., said Vancouver police Sgt. Steve McKenna, who works on the downtown drug squad.

"A street-level gram right now is about 80 bucks," he said.

It's the same story on the streets of Ottawa, according to criminology professor Irvin Waller, director of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime at the University of Ottawa. Waller confirmed the city is seeing an influx of cheap crack.

"There's clearly a lot of crack cocaine available on the streets. Less obviously, there's crack cocaine available in many schools," he said.

Indeed, within a block of the institute, crack dealers ply their trade openly.

"It's easier to get cocaine, crack, than it is to get weed on the streets," one addict told CBC News.