How Mexico's drug war washed up on Canada's West Coast - Carlos Osorio Toronto Editorial Photographer

Many of the drugs headed to Canada pass by the coastal resort city of Acapulco.

While the U.S. Attorney General's Office calls the Mexican drug cartels a "national security threat" and says 230 American cities have been infiltrated, the port city of Vancouver may be Canada's first to feel the fallout from the crackdown on Mexico's drug lords.

Already this year in the Vancouver area – nicknamed the gang capital of Canada – there have been 30 shootings (with 12 fatalities) directly linked to the gang shakeout in Mexico and tracked by the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Some 130 gangs operate in B.C., among them Red Scorpions, United Nations, MS-13, Bacon Brothers, Hells Angels and various independents – all with ties of varying degrees to lucrative Mexican cocaine, among other drugs from other places.

A group of kids use drugs in close proximity of the tourist strip in Acapulco.

A press conference in Otay Mesa, just across the border from Tijuana Mexico, where guns and drugs confiscated were on display.

A man is randomly searched trying to cross into the United States from Tijuana.

A man walks in front of the wall separating Mexico and the United States.

The Mexican-American border, as seen from Tijuana.

Enrique Solis Mejia, 52, was arrested by the Mexican military after he was found transporting over a thousand pounds of marijuana. He was put on display and presented to members of the media at a military outpost in Tijuana.

Constables Jamie Forbes, Phil Gomes and Mike Clark, alongside Corporal Al Coons and Constable Mike Hughes go over their game plan for the night after eating dinner. The group is part of the Integrated Gang Task Force in Vancouver.

Constables Mike Clark and Phil Gomes of Vancouver's Integrated Gang Task Force walk back to their vehicle after a neighbourhood patrol.

Patrolling Vancouver's club district.