Canadian cannabis is flooding into Europe. We found out why

This one is from Canada. My colleagues opened this container and then found a crate was hidden filled with vacuum bags of cannabis. About one kilo every bag. Wow. That is Canadian cannabis? Yes, that is. The legalization of cannabis in Canada is having an unintended but serious effect across the Atlantic. 21 tons of Canadian marijuana were seized here at the Belgian port of Antwerp last year, about four times more than the year before. Either you earn a lot of money, or you don't do it. Christian van der Waren is head of customs in Belgium, and he says seizures of Canadian cannabis at its main port exceed every other country in the world. Why Canadian cannabis? According to my information, it has to do with the policy of the Canadian government who legalized production and consumption. So you have a lot of production, and then you want to sell it. On top of this, 320 million Europeans who have money to buy this, so it's an immense market. The port of Antwerp is an immense gateway to that market. Weed, legally grown in Canada since 2018, is illegally smuggled through here, then sold for top dollar on the streets of Europe, from four to nearly six times as much as in Canada. This is a supply-driven market. Ine van Weermish is Belgium's first ever drug commissioner. The problem is that criminal organizations are making a lot of money exporting cannabis from Canada. And this has an effect on our streets. The shootings we see are mainly related to cocaine, but also to cannabis. A spike in drug turf wars has terrorized Belgium's cities. The latest tally in Brussels alone, 74 shootings so far this year. The surge prompted one judge to warn Belgium was evolving into a, quote, narco state. As a doorway to the continent, Belgium's drug problem is also Europe's problem. And the nature of that drug problem is changing. What does it tell you that in the first six months of this year that cocaine arrivals at your port have been exceeded by cannabis? It means that criminal organizations adapt very fast to new policy contexts. I think we cannot be naive. naive, we have to see the whole impact on a global scale of what a local policy can provoke. A world's worth of such impacts routinely lands at the port of Antwerp, along the cocaine portal to Europe. And where Belgian customs are battling to stay ahead of the criminals responsible. Smuggling is like surfing. You have to find the wave. The wave is what is existing. criminal organizations who are dealing with the cocaine are also dealing with the cannabis. Okay, we're now going to the scan tunnel. This is the first time Canadian journalists get a glimpse into the inner workings of customs at the port. Our guide is communications officer Sara Van Kottem. A lot of criteria are being used to decide whether or not a container is a risky one or not. Choosing which containers to inspect is a calculation against a checklist of risks. For example, more recently, Canadian containers are getting more scrutiny. But only a fraction of the 13.5 million containers flowing through here every year is checked. The rate of what we check is between 1 and 2 percent, like other ports, with a higher percentage of incoming containers and a lower percentage of export containers. Okay, so this is our fixed scan model. To bolster their inspections, customs use a number of modern tools, including artificial intelligence and scanners like this one. So it's just like an x-ray? Yes, it is. It only takes minutes for a container to be scanned. But sometimes the only way to find what may be stashed inside is to pry it open. And sometimes what looks innocuous is anything but. This was a container from people moving from Canada to France. There will be appliances, there will be furniture. It's a moving truck, effectively. Yeah, full of stuff. Okay, so even if you enlarge that, it's impossible to see if anything is off. The only option was to open it. And they did. And then they found two, like, electric jukeboxes. Yes, she's saying jukeboxes, as in music players. But the stuff to make it work was removed. So they opened the machines and then they found inside packages of cannabis. What happens to the stuff, the cannabis, after it's found? The drugs are taken to the incinerator to get burned. With Canadian cannabis seizures soaring last year, Van der Waarden raised the alarm with his Canadian counterparts. That led to an agreement, quietly signed between Canada and Belgium, as well as France and the Netherlands, to work on stymieing the smugglers together. Canadian authorities are upscaling their inspections. They seized also last year 46 tons. So they are doing a great job. Are they doing enough, given the scale of the problem? You can always do more, but that means capacity, that means means, and that is up to the politicians to decide. The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed there is a marked increase in cannabis export, especially to Europe, that with the RCMP they are working with international partners to fight the criminal networks responsible. An international problem, officials here insist, requires an international solution. Even if, like Canada's marijuana laws, it begins with local policy. It will not help us to blame each other because we need each other. This is really a global issue. If we don't focus on the global level and we don't act on the local level, we will never come to something sustainable. Europol told CBC News the illicit trade in cannabis from North America America will likely persist and even grow in Europe, a matter to consider as Canada and the EU look to deepen their ties.