Legally-grown, illegally smuggled.
The Canadians are crushing – on the pot industry, that is.
After former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized Cannabis in Canada, the market quickly became saturated, and the surplus ‘high-strength’ weed is being supplied to smugglers and shipped into Europe’s major ports – notably Antwerp, in Belgium.
So, the ‘market’ logic appears to be: legalized Canadian weed equals massive profits for European criminal gangs.
The Telegraph reported:
“Legally grown cannabis is flooding into Europe from Canada, enriching criminal gangs and helping turn Belgium into a ‘narco state’.
[…] Record quantities of cannabis are flooding into the port of Antwerp in Belgium, with customs seizing 32 tons of cannabis in the last year alone – a 500 per cent increase from 2024.
The gangs smuggle the cannabis into Europe’s ports in 6m-long shipping containers sent from the docks of Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax and St John.”
The cannabis market is so saturated in Canada that smuggling it into Europe yields five times more returns.
Gangs pay corrupt dock workers to divert shipping containers so as not to have them searched.
“The smuggling epidemic is compounding fears within Belgium’s own judiciary that the country is turning into a narco state, which refers to a nation whose economy relies on the drug trade and government corruption to survive. In Antwerp, organized criminal gangs armed with assault rifles and hand grenades blackmail and intimidate public officials to keep cocaine and cannabis shipments out of the hands of the police.”
WRD. News reported in December 2025:
“An Antwerp judge issued a stark warning last month that Belgium drug trafficking has reached crisis levels, with organized crime undermining the nation’s institutions and threatening the rule of law. The alarming assessment, delivered in an anonymous letter to Belgium’s Justice Committee in October 2025, paints a picture of a country where mafia-like structures operate as a parallel power.
The judge spent four months in a safe house after receiving threats from criminal networks, highlighting the personal risks facing those who confront Belgium drug trafficking operations. Her letter describes a situation where corruption has infiltrated port authorities, customs services, police forces, and even the judiciary itself.
At the heart of Belgium’s drug trafficking crisis lies the Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest maritime hub.”
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