There's been a big increase in the amount of illegal drugs—heroin cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy—smuggled across the U.S.-Canadian border, and Senator Chuck Schumer is pretty bent out of shape about it. In a special Wednesday press conference, Schumer unveiled his plan to "push back hard against the recent rise in drug smuggling across the Canadian border." The surge in drug seizures by northern border agents is indeed dramatic!

Since 2007, cocaine seizures have risen from less than 1kg to 18kg; heroin seizures have gone from less than 1kg to 28kg; marijuana seizures have gone from 2,791kg to 3,423kg and; ecstasy seizures have gone from 240kg to 303kg. The AP reports that in one high-profile bust in February, a 53-year-old Canadian man was arrested in western New York after agents using X-ray technology found 47 pounds of ecstasy—77,856 tablets worth $1.5 million—in a car's rear quarter panels, wrapped in cellophane, dryer sheets and electrical tape. Finally, another use for dryer sheets!

Yesterday Schumer criticized the Obama administration for planning a 12 percent funding cut to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Program (HIDTA), a federal crime-fighting initiative that funnels money to counties with the highest drug activity. Schumer intends to restore the HIDTA funds, and he's introducing a bill that would require the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to devise a comprehensive strategy "to combat this scourge, as they have for the Southern border." "Upstate New York is one of the greatest to places to raise a family, not just in the country, but on earth," the Brooklyn-born Schumer said. "To keep the quality of life so high, we’ve got to use every resource we have to combat those who would do our families harm."