FIRM STOPS SUPPLY OF ADDITIVE USED IN DRUG CROP SPRAYING

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian judge had ordered halt to fumigation of Indian
land in Amazon after complaints from Indians that the chemical was harmful.

A British company confirmed Friday it had quit supplying an additive added
to a herbicide that is used for a massive U.S.-financed fumigation of drug
crops in Colombia.

The firm said the additive had not been properly tested. Its announcement
added to the debate over the safety of the program.

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 had ordered a halt to the fumigation of Indian land in the
Colombian Amazonian region, but he has allowed other spraying to continue.
His ruling stemmed from Amazonian Indians' complaints that the spray was
harmful.

In much of the world, the herbicide is sold as the weedkiller Roundup, made
by St. Louis-based Monsanto. U.S. officials have insisted the herbicide is
safe.

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.

Imperial's spokesman, John Edgar, said his firm and Colombia-based
Cosmoagro - which produces Cosmo Flux - have decided to withdraw use of the
additive from the fumigation campaign. The decision was made, he said,
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.

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

A State Department report to the Congress in January indicated that Cosmo
Flux was safe. The report said "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.

He said other companies could provide the chemicals.

"We have had absolutely no problem (with suppliers), and I don't believe we
are going to have a problem in the future," he said.