by Diana McDermott ’13

The U.S./Canadian border is some 5,525 miles wide is and could possibly be the most ignored, unwatched, undefended border in the world.

Canada is the world’s leading producer of marijuana and with new strains of heroin and cocaine grown in Canada, the smuggling of narcotics by low flying planes, that are undetectable by radar, is not a good sign. A senior Homeland Security official said this Tuesday that the Canadian border poses more of a threat than the Mexican border.

The Homeland Security Department has started an effort, which will be in effect this fall, to apply more security to the Canadian border by planning to install radar specifically catered to detecting low flying planes.  However, there are no cameras that can take pictures of license plates of cars that could smuggle drugs or any searches of back pack hikers who could be smuggling drugs, which are popular methods of drug smuggling into New York and other border states.

The United States and Canada are huge trading partners, almost 1.3 billion dollars in commerce a year, so a stable secure border is definitely an issue. However, it seems that the porous border at this moment does not have enough security to stem the illegal drug smuggling or prevent any other security threats.