DON'T MESS WITH MOTHER NATURE -- SHE BITES 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 the 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 erosion. 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.