Colombia bans pesticide used against cocaine
Print Edition
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has told his government to stop using the controversial herbicide glyphosate — also known by its brand name Roundup.
“I am going to ask the government officials in the National Drug Council at their next meeting to suspend glyphosate spraying of illicit cultivations (of coca),” Santos said on Saturday.
Launched in 1994, the spraying program was long treated as sacrosanct by Colombian officials, who gladly accepted billions of dollars in funding from Washington and succeeded in slashing the cocaine production that has fueled a five-decade civil war.
But after the World Health Organization warned in March that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic,” Santos’s cabinet called into question whether to continue the air war on coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
“Recommendations and studies reviewed by the Ministry of Health show clearly that yes, this risk exists,” Santos said.
The president said the order did not mean Colombia would “lower its guard” in the fight against drug trafficking.
Drug officials now have until October 1 to come up with a new plan to tackle illicit coca growing.
Colombia, the world’s leading producer of cocaine, has used glyphosate for years to eradicate illicit coca.
The government has used aerial spraying in the south — a stronghold for the FARC leftist guerrilla group, which authorities accuse of financing itself with drug trafficking.
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