herbicide resistant coca?
a suggestive but inconclusive article by joshua davis in wired magazine describes boliviana negra, a new strain of coca plant selected by local farmers to resist american anti-drug aerial herbicide spraying.

Three hours after leaving the coca fields, I attend a meeting of two dozen heads of local farmer cooperatives - they represent more than 5,000 farmers in Putumayo - and they nod knowingly when asked about the new breed. "Nobody listens to us because they think we are dumb farmers," says one man. "The Americans are arrogant. They don't talk to the people who live here. We are the ones who are sprayed. We are the ones who live with the plants."

does the u.s. government's misguided coca eradication policy now provide free weed control for columbian coca fields?
posted by Will Ross at 20:04