THE MAGIC BULLET
Kawell, Jo Ann
IT IS THE DRUG WARRIOR'S DREAM: A chemical applied from the air that makes coca plants shrivel up and die. No need to dig them up by hand, as now. No need to come face to face with irate growers...
...In any event, soon after Lilly made its announcement, the Peruvian government quietly decided that aerial testing should be postponed until the government completed its own evaluation of the program...
...Unfortunately for them, coca is a sturdy little shrub that is able to survive dosing with defoliants like paraquat and 2,4-D, the chemicals that work so well against opium poppies and marijuana...
...The U.S...
...Along with five other herbicides,* it had been tested on a small plot in Peru's Huallaga Valley starting in October, 1987...
...and South American universities and at the U.S...
...A State Department report optimistically predicted the destruction of 25,000 acres of coca a year in Peru, a significant increase over the 900 acres destroyed in 1987...
...No need to come face to face with irate growers or their guns...
...In Washington, there is still optimism that large-scale aerial use of coca herbicides will come sooner rather than later...
...Testing was stopped when Dow refused to sell the government more Garlon-4 unless the company was indemnified against damage suits...
...officials hinted that they would obtain the chemical somehow--or that a substitute would be used...
...Scientists at U.S...
...As a 1988 State Department report admits, the governments of the producer countries are the main obstacle to wider herbicide use...
...Their experiment came to a speedy halt in the wake of massive demonstrations in the coca growing regions and protests by local scientists concerned about possible environmental damage...
...In 1985, the herbicide triclopyr, sold by Dow Chemical company as Garlon-4, was used aerially to eradicate 2,500 acres of coca in Colombia...
...Defoliant herbicides make the coca plants shed their leaves...
...Picloram, sold by Dow asbut is in disrepute among environmental scientists...
...And it had indeed been approved by the U.S...
...Critics of the program respond that herbicide use would only compound this damage, since eradicated producers would simply move on and cut new plots in the vast tropical wilderness where coca thrives...
...JAK *Hexazinone, glyphosate, dicamba, picloram, and cacodylic acid...
...Environmental Protection Agency...
...officials say environmental concerns are over- blown, and that, in any case, the coca producers themselves do far more damage when they cut tropical forest to plant coca...
...They argued that the Huallaga test was too short and poorly planned to prove that Spike would not harm the delicate tropical ecosystem...
...Bolivian officials say their concerns are environmental, but they appear to have other worries as well: "I can understand why the Bolivians are reluctant to use the stuff," says a Western diplomat, recalling what happened in 1982...
...But the EPA-mandated label, which warns that Spike "is an extremely active herbicide which will kill trees, shrubs and other forms of desirable vegetation" and should be kept "out of lakes, ponds, and streams," underscored criticisms by environmentalists...
...Both Garlon-4 and hexazinone, an herbicide made by Dupont and sold under the name Velpar, have been mentioned as possible substitutes, though they have reportedly not proven as effective as Spike in killing coca...
...Preliminary aerial tests may begin as early as this year...
...History has made Dow a bit touchy: As the supplier of the Agent Orange used in Vietnam, the company has already faced massive suits by veterans suffering from cancer and other health problems...
...Some of the Bolivian press reported the chemical used in the program was actually Agent Orange--a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T used to strip the jungles of Vietnam...
...This did nothing to cool local tempers...
...Tebuthiuron is not a defoliant, but rather an herbicide designed especially to kill woody plants like coca...
...In 1986, Congress appropriated $1 million for cqca herbicide research and in March, 1988, during a visit to Peru, then-Attorney General Edwin Meese made an announcement that briefly overshadowed his personal legal troubles at home...
...In the dream, herbicides are a Magic Bullet for the drug war...
...govern- ment for use in the eradication program...
...It did indeed kill coca...
...Bolivia has flatly ruled out large-scale herbicide use (though small ground tests are reportedly underway...
...Meese never named the herbicide to be used in the tests but word soon leaked that it was tebuthiuron, sold by Eli Lilly & Co...
...Meese said an effective and safe coca herbicide had finally been found...
...government has been looking for an effective coca herbicide for years (exactly how many is a government secret, but at least since the late 1970s...
...Department of Agriculture have received funding to carry out theqpest...
...They could have civil war on their hands if they tried that again...
...under the brand name Spike...
...but the plants don't die and the leaves often grow back bushier than ever, Officials tried using 2,4-D to wipe out some of the Bolivian coca crop in 1982...
...Officials confirmed that aerial testing was imminent, and some believed a coca herbicide would be in wide-scale use by the end of the year...
...In May, as the chorus of criticism grew louder, Eli Lilly announced that it would not sell Spike to the U.S...
Vol. 22 • March 1989 • No. 6
