New York, NY –
Drug enforcement officials say more and more marijuana is being smuggled across the border between Canada and New York. WNYC's Marianne McCune reports.
REPORTER: Just this week, 13 men were arrested. The indictments are part of an ongoing investigation into the smuggling of millions of dollars worth of high grade marijuana from hydroponic gardens in Canada to drug dealers all up and down the Eastern United States.
Last year, the DEA doubled the number of agents in Plattsburgh, New York, to deal with the increase. Assistant Special Agent Jim Burns says biker organizations and traditional organized crime families oversee much of the growing. Their couriers bring it to the U.S. in trucks, boats, and even snowmobiles.
Burns says Canadian marijuana is increasingly potent and sells to distributors for as much as $5,000 a pound. "Not your grandad's marijuana," he says. For WNYC, I'm Marianne McCune.
Marianne McCune is a staff reporter for New York Public Radio (WNYC 93.9FM/AM820) and contributes regularly to National Public Radio and Public Radio International. She thinks of the New York Metropolitan Area as the center of the world because that's how she covers it: more than a third of New York residents were born in another country and Marianne reports on the resulting cultural, economic, and political links between New York/New Jersey and almost everywhere else on earth.
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