The Colombian president tells George Bush the War on Drugs there is being won by U.S. mass herbicide dumps, according to the Christian Science Monitor -- to date U.S. planes have dumped Roundup over more than 300,000 acres of coca farms.
Guess President Alvaro Uribe didn't mention the drug lords have created Roundup resistant strains of coca plants. According to Joshua Davis in the November issue of Wired, basically, now we're just doing the drug lords' weeding for them.
Druggies and leftists found great inspiration in this 2004 report by Wired magazine (and others) that herbicide-resistant coca had emerged in Colombia in the face of a joint US-Colombian spraying program.
ReplyDeleteBecause those assertions have not been repeated since 2004, however, this reader is not convinced that those reports - which were based largely on a single account - were factual.
Hmmmmm, I really don't think so!
ReplyDeleteHere's a recent story that makes me think herbicide resistant crops are the next big thing for drug runners:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/179186,CST-NWS-mex20.article
Mexicans weed out new super marijuana
December 20, 2006
BY MARK STEVENSON
LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico -- Thousands of soldiers sent to seize control of one of Mexico's top drug-producing regions have discovered widespread cultivation of a hybrid marijuana plant that is easy to grow and difficult to kill, officials said Tuesday.
The plants can be killed only by having their roots pulled, a slow task, Army Gen. Manuel Garcia said.
''Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it's taken out by the roots,'' Garcia said.
Plants resist fumigation
The hybrid first appeared in Mexico two years ago but has become the plant of choice for drug traffickers in western Michoacan state, a remote mountainous region that lends itself to drug production.
The plants resist chemicals that burn only the top leaves without hurting the root, making aerial fumigation impossible, Garcia said.
On Tuesday, soldiers wielding assault rifles swarmed 38 marijuana plantations, ripping plants out of the ground. As they flew back to their base, they spotted 32 new fields.
''For each 100 that you spot from the air, there are 300 to 500 more than you discover once you get on the ground,'' Garcia said.
Last week, President Felipe Calderon sent 7,000 soldiers and federal officers to restore order in his home state and deal a blow to drug trafficking. The state has seen months of bloodshed from drug cartels that have carried out gruesome killings, including dumping five heads on a dance floor. AP