KILLER FUNGUS COULD BE UNITED STATES' SILVER BULLET IN DRUG WAR

BOGOTA, Colombia -- On a tropical Hawaiian island, a killer fungus
once ravaged a field of coca bushes that Coca-Cola hoped would provide
flavoring for its soft drinks.

The plague in the 1970s ruined Coca-Cola's plan to buy coca outside
the Andean region. But it excited counterdrug experts in Washington,
who later spent millions of dollars, some of it secretly, on a
multiyear quest for a biological weapon to destroy the Andean bushes
fueling the cocaine trade.

Now, under prodding from Washington, a United Nations agency wants to
test the laboratory-grown fungus on a small plot in Colombia, where
much of the world's coca is grown. The proposal has whipped up a minor
tempest. Opponents say the fungus might be toxic to farmers and wreak
havoc on jungles that are treasures of biodiversity. Advocates say the
fungus may become a "silver bullet" to kill coca plants and leave
other plants unaffected.

U.S. scientists say they don't know yet whether the fungus would
safely kill the nearly 300,000 acres of coca grown in Colombia without
affecting other flora, or even human life.

"The tests show so far that it is a reasonably good control agent. But
I wouldn't extrapolate from that that it will work in Colombia," said
Eric Rosenquist, a national program leader at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Research Service in Beltsville, Md. "The ecology is
different. There are competing organisms."

U.S. counterdrug experts, though, cite compelling reasons to
experiment further with the fungus, fusarium oxysporum, which is
considered a plant pathogen, or mycoherbicide.

For one, they say the fungus can be attached to seeds and dropped from
high altitudes. That beats the current strategy, in which
U.S.-financed crop dusters buzz illegal coca fields at 150 feet or so
- -- sometimes risking a hail of bullets from the ground.

Gunmen have hit spray planes 36 times so far this year, U.S. officials
say.