Canadian Ecstasy smugglers using VT, NY to get product into US

Canadian Ecstasy smugglers appear to be focusing their efforts to reach American markets in the U.S.-Canadian border area on the New York and Vermont sides of Lake Champlain.

The day before Thanksgiving, customs agents seized 200,000 of Ecstasy tablets valued at between $4 million and $6 million at the border crossing in Alburgh.

It was largest ground seizure ever in New England. But it was only the latest of four multimillion-dollar Ecstasy seizures in Vermont and New York in the last six weeks.

Earlier this year the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said that between 2003 and 2006 the amount of Ecstasy seized in the 10 Canadian border states went up almost 10 times. And they warned that in many cases the Canadian drug is being laced with methamphetamine, both to make it cheaper to produce and to make it more addictive as a way to keep customers coming back.