EXPERTS FEAR EFFECTS OF DRUG-WAR FUNGUS

The Biological Weapon Is To Fight The Opium Trade.

LONDON - Britain and the United States are developing a fungus that attacks
opium poppies, but the project aimed at withering the heroin trade could end
up producing a dangerous biological weapon, the BBC reported today.

Research on the pleospora fungus is being done at a former Soviet biological
warfare plant in Uzbekistan, the BBC said. The report said critics raised
the spectre of eco-terrorism and feared that the cash-strapped institute may
deal with private parties if London and Washington did not provide more
funding. "The fungus sounds like a silver bullet but it could easily become
a poisoned chalice," Paul Rogers, a British plant pathologist , told the BBC.