STOP SPRAYING

The World Wildlife Fund's request that the U.S. government suspend
its aerial spraying of herbicide on coca crops in Colombia until it
can be determined if the spraying is hurting the nation's fragile
tropics is a reasonable one that the Bush administration should heed.

While the State Department says the federal government has seen no
evidence that the spraying is causing environmental problems, reason
suggests that this claim is questionable. Spraying is a primary part
of the U.S. government effort to eradicate the illegal trade in
cocaine.

Moreover, there is no crying need that compels the government to keep
on with the spraying, aside from interdicting supplies to meet the
seemingly insatiable demand of Americans for illegal coca-based drugs.

Agent Orange, a defoliant the United States used widely during the
Vietnam War, ended up causing all sorts of problems no one had
foreseen. Latent medical problems that developed years after the war
among Vietnam veterans as well as Vietnamese have been in many
instances attributed to the defoliant.

Other chemicals with a specific purpose, even benign ones, like DDT,
PCBs, even asbestos, have later been discovered to cause
unanticipated environmental damage and have been proscribed.

Odds are, the herbicide sprayed on Colombia's coca crops affect other
flora, and it may well be deleterious to some fauna as well.

The World Wildlife Fund's request is a prudent one, based on lots of
experience. The federal government, armed with the knowledge that
unforeseen consequences of other chemicals have sometimes been
profound and pernicious, should stop aerial herbicide spraying and
more thoroughly determine if the practice can cause harm. If doing so
would take years, then so be it. Colombia's environment and its
people's health and lives are worth it.