Legalization now!

Toward the end of "Legalization Now!" (June),Toby Muse discusses U.S.-funded fumigation efforts against coca farms in Colombia, including costs and some of the drawbacks. I was expecting to see reference to a story by Joshua Davis that I read last November in Wired, but I did not.

The story, titled "The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn't Die," details the emergence of coca plants that are resistant to the primary chemical used in the fumigation (glyphosate, or Roundup).The new plants were most likely created not through centralized genetic engineering carried out by a drug cartel but through decentralized selective breeding carried out by the coca farmers themselves. Davis speculates that even if the U.S. switched to another chemical, the same process would likely happen again, with resistant strains surviving and being quickly propagated by the farmers.

Michael A. Schwegel

Coeur d'Alene, ID