Colombia Considers Waging Biological War on Illicit Crops

Colombia Considers Waging Biological War on Illicit Crops,
Juanita Darling
Los Angeles Times, 2000,

   BOGOTA, Colombia ... The next weapon in the arsenal of the
war against drugs may well be biological.

   Scientists have discovered three microscopic fungi that
will cause marijuana plants, heroin poppies and coca bushes
to turn yellow, drop their leaves and wither.

   While opponents believe that use of such fungi could cause
an environmental disaster, supporters see it as a benevolent
alternative to fumigation, which defoliates all plants ...
including food crops ... underneath the fine mist sprayed by
planes.

   As President Clinton visits Colombia on Wednesday to
initiate formally a controversial $1.3 billion anti-narcotics
aid package, the potential use of fungi is becoming an
important part of the debate about the most effective way to
halt drug production and trafficking. Colombia is the world's
leading producer of cocaine.

   ""It was a godsend,'' said a U.S. official who saw the
effects of an anti-coca fungus in Peru's Upper Huallaga
Valley at the beginning of the 1990s. The fungus wiped out 30
percent of the coca crop, and the leaves that survived had
lower levels of alkaloid, the active ingredient in cocaine,
the official said.

   The fungus strangles plants by blocking their vascular
system, much like cutting off a person's blood supply.

   But ecologists worry: What happens afterward?

   ""It could have an impact on other vegetation when it
finishes off the coca,'' said a Colombian government
biologist. ""This is a living organism that will transform
itself in order to survive. Field tests are a risk for
Colombia and the entire Amazon basin.''

   With that argument, Colombia ... like Florida, which is a
significant marijuana producer ... has refused to permit field
testing of anti-drug fungi. But laboratory testing continues
in controlled environments as far flung as Uzbekistan and
Hawaii.

   Biologists are concerned that the Colombian government,
recipient of two-thirds of the $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug
package, may not be able to resist pressure to test the
anti-coca fungus outside the laboratory. ""We say "no,' but
then it turns out to be "yes,''' warned agronomist Pedro Leon
Gomez.

   The anti-coca and anti-marijuana fungi are essentially
cousins in the fusarium oxysporum family. Members of the same
clan have massacred cotton in Australia, muskmelon in
California, beans in Spain and even carnations and banana
trees in Colombia.

   Each fungus is choosy about its victim, experience
indicates, generally preferring to attack only one species of
plant. The fungus that destroyed the carnations here did not
bother other flowers, and the strangled banana trees were
replaced by another variety, an effective although expensive
solution.

   But scientists are still experimenting to figure out how
adaptable each fungus can be in different soils and climates.
That is especially a concern in the Colombian jungle, where
not all plants have been identified.

   Since the fungus lives in the soil, it goes about its
deadly work despite rain or wind, a major advantage over
pesticides that can be washed off or blown away.

   Still, a Colombian government biologist wary of the fungus
insisted, ""This should only be considered if it were the
last option available. Have we tried all the other options?''

   The fungus could undermine a an alternative crop that
could be used to persuade farmers to stop growing coca,
warned agronomist Leon Gomez. Oil palms are one of the few
cash crops that will grow in the same climate as coca.

   While hardly as profitable as illegal crops, palm oil does
have a guaranteed market, said the Cornell-educated Leon
Gomez, who heads the oil palm industry's research institute
here. The institute's main project for the past decade ... $8
million worth of research ... has been to find a way to protect
palm trees from a soil fungus.

   Referring to fusarium oxysporum, he said, ""This fungus is
much more aggressive than the one we are trying to manage
now.''

   In fact, among the fungus family's best-known victims was
the palm oil industry in Nigeria and Zaire, where one strain
of the fungus destroyed 40 percent of the trees.

   Leon Gomez said he could not in good conscience recommend
that oil palm farmers plant in a zone that was known to have
been infested with even a distant relative of that fungus.
""The risk is just too high,'' he said.

   Florida officials came to the same conclusion about the
anti-marijuana cousin, prohibiting its use there last year.
Their main concern was that the fungus might mutate and
attack other crops.

   As work on the anti-marijuana and anti-coca fungi has
stopped short of field testing ... U.S. and U.N. officials
insist that a naturally occurring strain is at work in Peru ...
research on an anti-poppy fungus from a different family has
begun to catch up.

   The Institute of Genetics at Tashkent, the capital of
Uzbekistan in Central Asia, has tested pleospora papveracea
on 150 plants closely related to heroin poppies and has not
yet found another that the fungus harmed.

   ""The basic science is done or close to being done,'' said
Howard Stead, chief of the scientific section at the U.N.
International Drug Control Program, which is sponsoring the
research.

   Native to Uzbekistan, the fungus ""has different rates of
effectiveness, depending on variables such as climatic
conditions,'' he said.

   The fungus still needs to be tested in areas where illicit
crops grow, he said.

   Both Colombia and the United States use biological
controls against pests that attack commercial crops, Stead
noted.

   ""We're talking about similar technologies, whether they
are opium poppies or coca bushes or weeds,'' he said. ""When
you are killing coca bushes, there are interest groups that
want to protect the coca bushes, so questions are raised.''