ST. STEPHEN, New Brunswick – The United States is considering placing more customs agents along the Maine-New Brunswick border in a bid to stop prescription drug smuggling from Canada.

The proposal comes amid growing concerns over the soaring use of OxyContin, a prescription painkiller poised to become “a national problem,” said Kevin Bell, spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service in Washington, D.C.

Dubbed a synthetic heroin, the powerful and addictive OxyContin is blamed as a factor in nearly 80 percent of property crimes in Maine’s Washington County, a region that borders southwest New Brunswick.

Bell said Wednesday that signs of the drug’s rapid spread throughout the northeastern United States have been particularly evident through increased smuggling at the border crossing between St. Stephen and Calais, Maine.

“It is a big problem and it’s becoming even bigger up there,” Bell said. “We’re aware of this at headquarters and our resources will go to Calais and any other ports on the border where we find this smuggling.”

Identified by Maine’s top federal prosecutor as the most significant drug threat in the state, OxyContin is often obtained through the fraudulent use of prescriptions and Medicare.

Along with other opium- and morphine-based prescription narcotics, such as Dilaudid and MSContin, OxyContin has become the drug of choice among addicts. However, the majority of OxyContin that hits the street in Maine has somehow originated across the border.

“The main way to get the pills is still smuggling, and that’s coming from Canada,” Bell said. “And unfortunately up there much of that part of the country is fairly open and unprotected.

“There are rivers and bays easily crossed between the ports of entry and it’s a challenge for us.”

Customs agents at the Calais border crossing have made numerous seizures from both Canadians and Americans trying to bring the drug across in body cavities, Bell said.

Predominantly individuals in their teens or 20s, smugglers aren’t always easy to identify, he said. Agents have seized drugs from Hasidic Jews, older couples, and a couple who tried to smuggle the drugs in the clothes of their mentally handicapped son.

“Smugglers are pretty smart – not all of them – but some of them are,” Bell said. “Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to tell how many people are coming through.”