FUNGUS MAY BECOME A NEW WEAPON IN THE WAR AGAINST COCAINE

Under pressure from the United States, Colombia has reluctantly agreed
to take the first step toward developing a powerful biological
herbicide against the coca and heroin-poppy fields that are spreading
almost unchecked across its countryside, Colombian and U.S. officials
said Wednesday.

For years, U.S. officials have been quietly debating ways to conduct
field tests of such an herbicide, developed from a fungus that occurs
naturally in many types of coca and other plants.

Now, Colombian officials say they are completing a proposal to the
United Nations that would include testing for the presence of the
fungus, Fusarium oxysporum, in coca, the raw material of cocaine.

If the fungus is found in Colombian varieties of coca, Colombian
scientists would go on to evaluate its effectiveness, safety and
environmental impact before deciding whether to produce a herbicide.

"What we want is a program of research -- and only research on the
use of biological controls against these crops," the Colombian
environment minister, Juan Mayr, said in an interview this week.

The Colombian government's uneasy support for the project comes as
President Clinton is about to sign a bill providing $1.3 billion in
aid to Colombia to fight drug traffickers and the insurgents who
protect their trade.

Some powerful Republicans in Congress told Colombian officials that
they were supporting the spending on the expectation that Colombia
would agree to explore the use of Fusarium fungus in its coca fields.

Within the Clinton administration, officials said, the testing of
fungal herbicides was also pushed by the White House drug policy
adviser, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, and by officials of the U.S.
Southern Command, which is overseeing the U.S. overhaul of Colombia's
armed forces.

Environmentalists and other activists in both countries are raising a
din of objections to any field tests of the fungus, arguing that it is
virtually a biological weapon -- one that might upset Colombia's
ecology or endanger farmers, animals and food crops.

Last year, similar complaints by environmentalists in Florida prompted
state officials there to put aside plans to test a variant of Fusarium
for possible use against marijuana fields.

Several plant pathologists who have studied the fungus extensively
said there was relatively little scientific basis for the assertions
about its danger. They acknowledged that a great deal of testing still
needed to be done, but they added that the most significant unanswered
questions might have less to do with the safety of the fungus than
with its effectiveness and cost.