Super Coca Plants and the Fungus Among Us....

[Angry Girl]

Or should this go under Drug Policy? So many categories, so little time... argh....

Great article in Wired Mag: The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn't Die

The war on Colombia's drug lords is losing ground to an herbicide-resistant supershrub. So now Bush wants to unleash a fungus on the Amazon....

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia.html?pg=1&topic=columbia&topic_set=

EXCERPT:

Last summer, documents show, anti-narcotics officials at the US embassy in Bogotá quietly approached Colombia's president, Álvaro Uribe, and asked him if he'd consider switching from Roundup to Fusarium oxysporum, a plant-killing fungus classified as a mycoherbicide. Some species are known to attack coca; in the early '90s, a natural Fusarium outbreak decimated the Peruvian coca crop.

But Fusarium is not a chemical - it's a fungus, and it can live on in the soil. A proposal to consider using it in Florida in 1999 was rejected after the head of the state's Department of Environmental Protection found that it was "difficult, if not impossible, to control spread" and that the "mutated fungi can cause disease in a large number of crops, including tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn, and vines." A switch to Fusarium would, at the least, be an escalation in the herbicide war and a tacit acknowledgment of glyphosate's failure. It could also turn out to be the A-bomb of herbicides.

Still, according to a letter sent from the State Department to Colombia's US ambassador, Uribe was "ready to learn more." The letter, dated October 3, 2003, laid out steps for moving this plan forward, but when I spoke to officials at the embassy, they vehemently denied they are considering a herbicide switch. They stated that they are thrilled with the success of Roundup.

Don Miguel admits that on one level, the spraying has been highly effective. Almost all the old strains of coca have been eradicated. What's left are small plots of Boliviana negra, but these have become more productive, in part because the spraying has killed all the other plants competing for nutrients.
-----END EXCERPT

Be afraid. Be very afraid....

Angry Girl
nightweed.com

[DireStrike]

1. Oh my god...

This could, in a worst case scenario, leave the entire Western Hemisphere barren.

In a best case, it'll kill everything except a few strains which become the new standard. It will be ultimately ineffective, and could possibly harm indegenous life.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. There's a soybean rust getting started, too

It's natural, and it's nasty, so it demonstrates how much damage could be caused by our misguided efforts to "fight" drugs.

--p!