USA - Bio war on drugs

[tip]

Congressman Mark Souder has been busy in his personal war on drugs. As well as fighting against the legalisation of cannabis for medical use, the Indiana Republican has slipped a provision into a bill calling for the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to be used as a biological control agent against drug crops in foreign countries.
The CIA, however, has had moral doubts about using the fungus. In 2000, a CIA official told The New York Times that it was unsafe both for humans and for the environment: "I don't support using a product on a bunch of Colombian peasants that you wouldn't use against a bunch of rednecks growing marijuana in Kentucky."
The Department of Agriculture and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree. Fusarium species are highly prone to mutation, so they can readily change hosts and infect plants they were not supposed to. This was the main reason Florida's Department of Environmental Protection rejected the fungus in 1999 as a biocontrol agent for use on outdoor marijuana crops.
The House of Representatives proposal to use F. oxysporum in biocontrol is not included in the Senate version of the bill, which concerns the office of the US "drug czar", and a committee will now meet to decide on the final version.
Meanwhile, Bausch & Lomb recalled a contact-lens solution last week amid fears that it is associated with the spread of an eye disease across the US. The disease is caused by F. oxysporum.

[Nagognog2]

Just out to prove "If you smoke that stuff, you'll go blind!"

[allyourbase]

reminds SWIM of the ol' Paraquat days.

[Nagognog2]

Tell me about it. I invented the do-it-yourself easy home test for that. Boy did the Feds get pissed!

[darawk]

Heh, when the CIA and DEA express moral doubts about something...that certainly speaks volumes about that somethings proponents...

[tip]

I can just vision the pro DEA documentary. A plain hovers over machine gun wielding cartel hiding in crops, poof out comes a cloud of blue dust and all the evil plants die leaving angry drug dealers and firing aimlessly in the air.

[Felonious Skunk]

I find it fascinating that the DEA and CIA are at moral odds with an anti-drug pit bull. I'm curious to know what corporate entities have Souder on a collar & chain...

[tip]

I'm curious to know what corporate entities have Souder on a collar & chain...

Halliburton Energy Services???..............another $2.15 billion project by 2010 god bless america

[tip]

no its the FDA