Colombia said it would begin testing aerial spraying to eradicate coca crops, the raw material used to make cocaine, for the first time since the government halted one of the country’s most contentious antidrug policies more than a decade ago — a move that was immediately challenged by a local court.
The announcement came two days after the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met with Colombia’s president, Abelardo De La Espriella, who said the two had agreed to “combat narcoterrorism head-on.”
The National Police said Thursday that it would carry out a limited program in the southern province of Putumayo and would apply a different herbicide than what had been used in the past. But on Friday afternoon a court in Putumayo temporarily suspended the plan, saying the government had not provided enough information about potential risks. The suspension is provisional pending the court’s review and does not constitute a final ruling on the legality of the program.
The new program is likely to rekindle a debate over whether the aerial deployment of herbicides causes unacceptable risks to people living in some of Colombia’s poorest and most remote areas. The practice has also been criticized as ineffective because coca farmers simply replant.
Colombia had used the herbicide glyphosate for years, but the government suspended the program in 2015 after the World Health Organization classified the chemical as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Colombia’s top court soon imposed strict conditions on any attempt to resume aerial spraying.
This time, Colombia will use glufosinate-ammonium, an herbicide widely used in agriculture. The experiment will be temporary and designed to determine whether aerial application of the herbicide is effective and safe, the police said.
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Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt