Plan Colombia and Beyond

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August 13, 2005

Why mycoherbicides are still a stupid idea

The idea of spraying spores and fungi over Colombia’s coca-growing zones is like one of those horror movie villains who keeps appearing to be dead once and for all, only to pop up again in the next scene (or sequel). Like a lot of bad ideas in Washington, the use of mycoherbicides – particularly Fusarium oxysporum – is still in play thanks to a small corps of House Republican hardliners.

Mycoherbicides popped up yet again on June 16, when Indiana Republican Reps. Dan Burton and Mark Souder slipped an amendment into the House Government Reform Committee’s draft of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act (H.R. 2829), which makes changes to the law governing the White House Drug Czar’s office. (The text of the bill, as changed by the committee, is still not available online.) As part of a “manager’s amendment” – a series of changes proposed by the committee’s chairman – the mycoherbicide provision was subject to no debate and no separate vote.

The amendment would require the Drug Czar to produce a “plan of action” for carrying out scientific research about mycoherbicides, and a similar plan “to conduct controlled scientific testing of naturally existing mycoherbicide in a major drug producing nation” (such as Colombia, the only country that allows any fumigation at all).

In the two members’ press release, Rep. Souder insists that “mycoherbicide research needs to be investigated, and we need to begin testing it in the field. The potential benefit of these fungi is tremendous.” (Souder is also the reason why, as tens of thousands of kids have found, being arrested for drug possession means you’ll never get financial aid for college, no matter whether you’ve cleaned up your act. Bad ideas just seem to stick to him like flypaper.)

The bill probably won’t go anywhere; the Senate doesn’t even have a version of its own, and is unlikely to approve something so controversial anyway. But it’s still remarkable that this idea isn’t completely dead.

As herbicide expert Jeremy Bigwood (who maintains the mycoherbicide.info website) has thoroughly documented, there is good reason to be strongly concerned about the health and environmental impact of mycoherbicides. There is no guarantee, for instance, that they will kill only coca, how readily they will mutate, and how quickly they could spread into the ecosystem even if only tested.

Bigwood wrote a recent piece on the NarcoNews website recounting the history of attempts to push mycoherbicides both at home and abroad. It’s too much to summarize here, but it’s worth recalling that the fungi were briefly part of the original Plan Colombia law.

In the language of the original Plan Colombia appropriation back in 2000, Souder, Burton and a few other House Republicans had added a condition – in the same section as human rights conditions! – requiring the Colombian government to agree to a counternarcotics strategy including “tested, environmentally safe mycoherbicides.” The law allowed the Clinton Administration to waive the entire section of conditions – that is, to skip the whole process entirely, human rights, mycoherbicides and all – which it did immediately. Future human-rights conditions did not include a waiver provision, and the mycoherbicide language also disappeared.

The Bush Administration, too, is reluctant to support the idea. When Rep. Burton (calling them “micro-herbicides”) asked about the possibility of testing them during a May committee hearing, Drug Czar John Walters said no, citing “concern about other agents being introduced to the environment. The Colombian government has also said that it is not interested. Again, it is not clear that this particular organism is specific to coca… If you were to drop [spray] it – and it is not specific to coca – it could cause considerable damage to the environment which in Colombia is very delicate.”

While health and environment concerns should be enough to drive a stake through the heart of the mycoherbicide monster, there is an even more compelling reason why their use is a dumb idea. Mycoherbicides – like fumigation itself – are just another shortcut, another seemingly cheap, short-term fix to a problem that has much deeper roots.

Imagine that years and millions of dollars’ worth of research finally comes up with a fungus that somehow kills only coca, without mutating into anything else or doing any damage to human health or ecosystems. This magic organism would probably disrupt the cocaine market for several years, forcing wealthy drug lords to shift production to other countries, or to alter the coca genome to come up with some magic coca bush that resists the fungus.

For a few years, this disruption would likely take some money out of Colombia’s conflict. Guerrillas and paramilitaries – who currently get at least half of their funding from the drug trade – would be forced to adjust by increasing kidnapping, extortion, production of other drugs, or other profitable organized-crime activity. It would take the armed groups up to a few years to recover their earlier revenue streams.

That’s about all the impact this magic mycoherbicide would have, though. In the absence of social investment in Colombia’s neglected, violent rural areas, 85 percent of the population would continue to live in poverty as it does today. Rural Colombians would continue to distrust a government that sends soldiers and fungi in lieu of doctors, roads or teachers.

In fact, by taking away a crop that was feeding them and replacing it with nothing, the magic mycoherbicide would probably increase anger at the Colombian government, working to the guerrillas’ or paramilitaries’ advantage. It would be counterinsurgency in reverse.

Meanwhile, in the absence of investment in Colombia’s beleaguered and inefficient judicial system, impunity would still be the rule, and those who engage in illegal activity would have little to fear from judges and prosecutors whom they can bribe and intimidate. Violence and organized crime would still thrive, even if fungi killed all the coca.

Even the most perfect herbicide wouldn’t bring Colombia’s conflict to an end. Guerrillas and paramilitaries would still be able to draw on a reserve army of people with no other economic opportunities and no reason to trust their government. They, and those who support them, would still remain above the law.

The most perfect mycoherbicide would only eliminate coca bushes. It wouldn’t eliminate poverty, impunity, corruption, or the Colombian government’s inability to administer its territory. Even the most perfect mycoherbicide would be yet another misguided shortcut, a gimmick to avoid doing what really needs to be done. That’s why it’s a stupid idea. This particular horror movie needs no sequel.

Posted by isacson at August 13, 2005 11:55 PM

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