COLOMBIA VETOES COCA KILLER FUNGUS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The Colombian government Friday vetoed a
U.S.-backed proposal to test a killer fungus on the bushes from which
cocaine is made, saying it might pose ``grave risks to the environment
and humans.

The United Nations Drug Control Program, under prodding from
Washington counter-narcotics experts, had proposed a small-scale test
of the fungus in Colombia, which produces much of the world's cocaine.

But the Environmental Ministry announced it had decided against
experimenting with a strain of the fungus, fusarium oxysporum, that
causes coca bushes to wilt and eventually die.

``Any agent foreign to the native eco-systems of our country could
present grave risks to the environment and the health of human beings,
the ministry said in a brief statement.

Instead, the ministry said it will continue ongoing experiments to
eradicate the country's nearly 300,000 acres of coca bushes using
native biological agents ``that would assure there would be no risk.

The U.N. agency's proposal had sparked a controversy, with opponents
arguing that the fungus might affect plants other than the coca bush
and prove harmful to residents of the test area.

Some critics feared the fungus might even mutate and threaten
Colombia's southern Amazon region, one of the world's most
biologically diverse areas.

The fungus' killer punch was first noticed in the 1970s after it
devastated a field of coca bushes planted in Hawaii by the Coca-Cola
company to flavor its product.

The narcotic content of the coca leaves used in Coca-Cola is removed
before the flavoring is added to the soft drink.

Colombia's coca plantations are now attacked with chemical herbicides
sprayed from U.S.-financed fumigation airplanes.