An expert on organized crime and prevention in Canada says loading up the border with more police to combat drug smuggling is just one aspect of a very tangly problem.

Stephen Schneider, a professor of criminology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, was reacting to Canada’s pledge to put an additional 10,000 officers on border duty, along with creation of a so-called “fentanyl czar.”

That was in response to the threat of a 25 per cent trade tariff by the U.S. on the import of Canadian goods.

But Schneider says the approach ignores the fact that only a fraction of all fentanyl entering the U.S. comes from Canada, adding that policing is just one aspect of the problem.

“So what we need is not a border czar or a strike force as they’re calling it. What we need really is a comprehensive, national, whole-of-society strategy that leverages all the elements of prevention,” he said. “Enforcement should really just be seen as a part of an overall strategy, a comprehensive strategy, and that is what we’re truly missing, not only in Canada but in the United States as well.”

Schneider notes there are many sources of illegal and doctored drugs entering both countries, blaming big pharma as a source, as well as over-prescription by doctors and pharmacies.