ATTACK OF THE KILLER FUNGI

America's drug war is getting out of hand. The US FDA has come up with a
drug-munching fungus, that it hopes to unleash across Asia and the Andes.

The Fusarium oxysporum and Pleospora papveracae fungi have already been
tested on opium and cannabis crops in the US and Asia. Now the US Drug
Control Programme is pressuring Colombia to test the fungi, with which it
plans to destroy the crops of the nation's 'drug barons'. But
environmentalists say that intentional release of the fungi into a nation's
environment is tantamount to chemical warfare, and have labeled the US plan
'Agent Green'. For the effects of the fungus on other plant species, and
particularly on wild relatives of the targeted crops, are completely
unknown. Coca, for example, has five endangered relatives which are food and
home to butterflies and insects.

A fungi invasion could spell doom for the rare plants.

Strains of the fusarium fungi produce toxins so deadly that they are
classified as 'biological agents' and weapons of war under the draft
Protocol to the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. In countries like
Bolivia, where coca is used like chewing gum, the fungi could kill. The most
frightening thing of all is that once released, the fungus is totally out of
control, and may spread like wildfire across national borders.

Fungi targeted at Colombian coke barons, for example, could easily cross the
Andes into Peru, a legal coca producer.

Likewise, fungus aimed at Burmese opium fields might ravage Thai poppy crops
grown to make pharmaceutical opiates. Indigenous peoples would also become
victims of the drug war. Many tribes harvest the targeted crops for
traditional, non-drug purposes.