After more than a decade of pressure, the Colombian government agreed in June to US demands to test a new herbicide for use in the war on cocaine producers. The new herbicide is tebuthiuron, a pelletized herbicide that is more effective, persistent, and environmentally dangerous than herbicides used in Colombia in the past. Critics, including a US General Accounting Office report of February 1998, argue that this new offensive is taking place at the expense of other, possibly more effective, interdiction efforts. For four years Colombian police have used airplanes to spray fields with liquid herbicides. But several problems have made these treatments relatively ineffective.
Rainfall quickly disperses and dilutes liquid herbicides, further reducing effectiveness.
Most important, applications must be done low to the ground, at times of day when there is no rain and little wind to cause drift from the target fields. These low-level applications in fine weather make airplanes especially vulnerable to attack from the ground. Colombia's south-central provinces are likely to recieve the greatest focus in the tebuthiuron application program. In contrast, tebuthiuron comes in pea-sized solid pellets, which can be dropped from higher altitudes even in rainy or windy weather. This makes tebuthiuron applications much safer for pilots.