War on the Environment

By Suzanne Wills, Drug policy observer

December, 2006

Growers of coca and opium cleared 2.3 million hectares of rainforest to create new fields for cultivation between 1982 and 2002 according to Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. One quarter of all Amazonian deforestation in the 20th century was a result of the illegal drug trade. Remote spots filled with biodiversity make ideal bases for narcotics production and trafficking.

To destroy these coca and opium crops the U.S. government has sprayed vast quantities of high-potency glyphosate over hundreds of thousands of acres in Colombia's remote forests, one of the most delicate and biodiverse ecosystems in the world. Ecologists are very worried about the effects of the herbicide, especially the surfactant chemicals that are added to help penetrate foliage.

Over 8,000 complaints have been filed over erroneous fumigation of food crops in Colombia. A resolution presented to the American Medical Assoc. at its 2004 convention said the spraying is causing “widespread illnesses, destroying pastures, destroying food crops, poisoning livestock, displacing thousands of small farmers, and killing birds, mammals, aquatic life, and natural plants.”

The US government's 2006 survey showed that Colombia had 144,000 acres (556 square miles) of coca being cultivated. This is more than when Plan Colombia began.

Even more disturbing, some scientists believe the use of glyphosate may accelerate the growth of Fusarium, a genus of very toxic moulds that occurs naturally in soils and occasionally invades crops, but is usually held in check by other microbes. The manufacturer of glyphosate, Monsanto, says there is no danger.

During 2000, the U.S. Congress planned to use Fusarium as a biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia and another fungus to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan. These plans were dropped after intense criticism from scientists.

Mexican growers produce about 30 percent of the heroin on the U.S. market. Mexican "superlabs" have become the major source of methamphetamine, which is made from toxic chemicals. The Sierra Madre highlands are a center for marijuana and opium cultivation. The fragile Sonoran desert near the U.S. border has become a major drug route. Little is known about the environmental damage from these activities because areas controlled by drug gangs have become too dangerous for environmental groups to enter.

In the United States, drug prohibition with an emphasis on forfeiture laws leads illegal drug cultivators and manufacturers to locate in remote, environmentally pristine areas, often deserts and national forests.

A cost/benefit analysis of the drug war is long overdue. Such an analysis must include the cost of destruction of the environment.

Monsanto's popular product Roundup, which contains a chemical called glyphosate is alleged to increase the size of colonies of the fungus Fusarium, a genus of often very toxic moulds that occurs naturally in soils and occasionally invades crops, but usually held in check by other microbes. If true, these allegations not only call into question the world's number one weed killer, but they also jeopardize the world's acceptance of Monsanto's flagship line of genetically-engineered "Roundup Ready" crops.

Maybe, but, over the last two decades, several scientists from New Zealand to Africa have noticed and investigated the glyphosate-fusarium relationship through small-scale experiments in the relative obscurity of their labs and reporting the results of their work through the hidden world of academic journals. The result of all of this work, is "just under 50 scientific papers," says Robert Kremer PhD., a soil scientist at the University of Missouri. This body work shows an increase in Fusarium or other microbes after the application of glyphosate.

Monsanto's Dr. Harvey Glick disagrees: "Roundup is almost 30 years old and scientists have been looking at all aspects of its use for at least that long. So there is a tremendous amount of information available. And that is why there is such a high level of confidence that the use of Roundup, based on all of this earlier work, does not have any negative impacts on soil microbes...

During 2000, the US Congress planned to use the fungus Fusarium as a biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia and another fungus to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan, but these plans were dropped by then-president Clinton who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nations, including Colombia, where it was to be used in the drug war against coca cultivation banned its use throughout the region. Sanho Tree, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project commented about using a chemical that produces a banned micro-organism: "The US has supplied tens of thousands of gallons Roundup to the Colombian government for use in aerial fumigation of coca crops. We have been using a fleet of crop dusters to dump unprecedented amounts of high-potency glyphosate over hundreds of thousands of acres in one of the most delicate and bio-diverse ecosystems in the world. This futile effort has done little to reduce the availability of cocaine on our streets, but now we are learning that a possible side-effect of this campaign could be the unleashing of a Fusarium epidemic in Amazon basin. The drug war has tried in vain to keep cocaine out of people's noses, but could result instead in scorching the lungs of the earth."