MESS WITH MOTHER NATURE AND SHE JUST MIGHT BITE BACK

There they go again trying to mess with Mother Nature.

The latest scheme afoot is to employ a fungus to "selectively" destroy
much of Florida's immense, lucrative and mostly homegrown marijuana
industry.

Almost half of all marijuana seized each year by drug enforcement
agents nationwide is taken in the Sunshine state, so the problem is
indisputable.

The proposed solution, however, is not.

The plan is to dust suspected growing areas with a marijuana-eating,
soil-borne fungus called Fusarium oxysporum. According to the
Montana-based company that developed the fungus, it is harmless to
plants other than marijuana.

Maybe. Then again, such experiments often have gone awry. Some
environmentalists warn that organisms which behave well elsewhere
often go berserk in Florida's warm, wet climate.

Take the case of the dreaded kudzu, a Chinese vine that has run
rampant across the South since being introduced in the 1920s to thwart
soil conditions. In Florida, it grows a foot a day, swallowing acres
of roadside and even houses.

Then there are the melaleuca trees, imported decades ago to help drain
the Everglades. Now they have infested hundreds of thousands of acres.

If the proposed fungus were to mutate, it could cause damage to prime
crops such as tomatoes, peppers and corn--mainstays of Florida's
thriving agricultural economy.

At this point, state officials appear to be taking a cautious course,
with much extended testing planned before any decisions are made about
deployment.

That is a wise course. Mother Nature has a way of playing nasty
tricks on overreaching humans.