ADDITIVE TO HERBICIDE SPRAYED ON COLOMBIAN DRUG CROPS WITHDRAWN FOR LACK OF
TESTING

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Adding to the debate over the safety of a massive
U.S.-financed fumigation of drug crops, a British company confirmed Friday
it has stopped supplying an additive used in the herbicide, saying it has
not been properly tested.

Planes contracted by the U.S. State Department have blanketed at least
123,000 acres of cocaine-producing crops with the herbicide glyphosate
since late last year.

A Bogota judge, acting on complaints from Amazonian Indians that the spray
is harmful, last week ordered a halt to the fumigation of Indian lands in
the Colombian Amazonian region, but allowed other spraying to continue.

U.S. officials have insisted the herbicide is safe. In much of the world,
it is sold as the common weedkiller Roundup, made by the U.S. chemical
company Monsanto.

But the crop dusters had been using an additive called Cosmo Flux to make
the glyphosate less likely to drift in the wind as it floats down from the
planes, and to make it adhere better to the drug crops. Cosmo Flux uses a
substance called Atplus 300F, sold by the British company Imperial Chemical
Industries.

Company spokesman John Edgar said his firm and the Colombian company
Cosmoagro, which produces Cosmo Flux, decided to withdraw use of the
additive from the fumigation campaign because of a lack of information
about its effects when mixed with glyphosate.

"We had not tested it for that purpose," Edgar said in a telephone
interview from London.

A Cosmoagro official confirmed that Cosmo Flux was no longer being sold as
an additive for the fumigation campaign.

U.S. Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment late Friday.

A Jan. 23 State Department report to the U.S. Congress indicated Cosmo Flux
was safe, saying "all of the ingredients ... are acceptable for use on food
products when label instructions are followed."

The head of the Colombian anti-narcotics police, Gen. Gustavo Socha, who
oversees the aerial spraying, said he was unaware of the development.

"No one has notified me that they're not going to sell us something," Socha
said in a telephone interview.

Socha said other companies have offered to sell chemicals as part of the
fumigation campaign, adding: "We have had absolutely no problem (with
suppliers) and I don't believe we are going to have a problem in the future."