When Cocaine and Monsanto's Pesticide Collide, the War on Drugs Becomes a Genetically-Modified War on Science

By Meg White, BuzzFlash. Posted September 8, 2009.

But punishment is meted out unequally. Because glyphosate is an herbicide and is not specifically targeted to work against drug crops (as is easily deduced by the fact that it's used against coca and poppy plants as well as against household weeds in the U.S.), the spray kills legitimate crops, too.

That is, unless you're growing Monsanto's specially-formulated "Roundup Ready" crops. The you can spray nearly unlimited amounts of the stuff, which is what it seems farmers (as well as the U.S. military) are doing.

It seems that the whole operation may have backfired though, at least from the perspective of the governments that are promoting such a strategy. The effort has lead to coca growers cutting down national forests -- where such spraying is often against the law -- to produce their illicit crops. But Mother Nature may be rebelling against drug policy as well. coca plants appear to be either evolving on their own (or with the help of coca farmers' active selection)  -- or they are possibly crossing with Roundup Ready crops already on the ground -- to produce a glyphosate-resistant crop known as Boliviana negra.

One TNI study looked at the political and commercial motives for continuing to spray the chemical on drug crops in South America regardless of findings that the effort is counterproductive at best:

It is true that the United States is behind fumigation, backed by the economic interests of companies such as Monsanto and DynCorp, who share in this lucrative business -– which is one of the reasons it meets with opposition. But it is also true that the disastrous consequences of the current anti-drug policy, of which fumigation is but one component, are a reality that surpasses ideologies, and the nations that suffer its consequences firsthand must find a solution instead of becoming polarised...

Colombia would not fumigate if it weren’t for pressure from the US. It would be implementing other forms of eradication or offering alternative development programmes that provide income to the population.

The group suggested that South American countries band together to refuse U.S. anti-narcotic spraying on environmental and human safety grounds, as has been done in Afghanistan.

In 2004, Joshua Davis had the Boliviana negra plant tested to determine its provenance for Wired Magazine. He concludes that the glyphosate-resistant coca plant he found in Colombia was most likely developed in the fields by farmers grafting on chance genetic mutations.

But the resulting article is perhaps most interesting for the taciturn response on all sides of the issue. Davis suggests that South American authorities don't want to talk about the situation because the revelation might cost countries that receive a large amount of U.S. aid to combat drug traffickers. The U.S. government doesn't want coca farmers who don't already know to find out about the new strain, because it can still eradicate old strains with glyphosate. And drug growers who do have the new strain certainly don't want the status quo to end, because currently the U.S. government is doing their weeding for free.

But on the larger cost-benefit analysis, the biggest winner is Monsanto. The more Roundup Ready crops there are out there, the more Roundup farmers need to get rid of the weeds, as is evidenced by the GRAIN research in Argentina. The real foe of Monsanto is not drug cartels or government entities. It's scientists.

When you put together the studies referenced above, which show that spraying glyphosate is harmful to humans and the environment and that it does not hamper the production of coca or weeds, the answer to almost everyone's problems is eliminating Monsanto.

So while there's no solid proof that the men threatening Andrés Carrasco belong to the same corporation that falsified lab results on the harm caused by glyphosate or the group that told lies about Roundup, there's no doubt in my mind that they belong in the same sick club.

See more stories tagged with: cancer, pollution, disease, genetically modified, gmo, monsanto, soy, coca, glyphosate, herbicide, deform, spray, crop

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from DrugReporter! Sign up now »