Contraband cigarette production and smuggling at the Canada-U.S. border that costs Canada an estimated $2 billion a year in lost revenues is not a priority for U.S. law enforcement, says the district attorney for a New York border county.

"We kind of have a clash of cultures, so to speak," said Derek Champagne of Franklin County. "Obviously the flow of marijuana is our No. 1 priority and on a local level, the tobacco is just not even an issue."

Federal, Ontario and Quebec officials estimate they lose $2 billion a year in tax revenues due to cigarette smuggling through the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, which spans both the interprovincial border and the international border across the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall.

Sgt. Michael Harvey said those cigarettes largely come from up to a dozen factories on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne territory. Earlier this year, when Stockwell Day was minister for public safety, he told CBC News that those factories were "a real concern."

N.Y. officials won't lay tobacco charges

Many of the factories are based in Franklin County, where Champagne said district attorneys such as himself have been told not to charge aboriginal people for possession of untaxed tobacco.

He added that since he doesn't want to enforce the law selectively, he's decided not to charge anybody, and prosecutors in neighbouring counties have followed suit.

"Until the federal [bureau of] alcohol, tobacco and firearms … makes a serious decision that they're going to address the tobacco, it's something that's so large, it's just too big an issue for any local agency."

Champagne said his county has smuggling problems of its own to deal with — marijuana produced in Canada and brought over the border for distribution throughout the northeastern U.S.

"Obviously the robberies, and the kidnappings and the homicides that occur because of the drug trade over here make us focus our efforts on the drug trade."

But he added that if law enforcement agencies in his region of New York state got more resources to fight the drug trade, he could "see a more combined effort towards the cigarettes."

Until that happens, he said, the two countries will continue to focus on different sides of the smuggling trade, each one feeling the other isn't doing enough to help.