HemperFi

Two new words which we should all add to our vocabulary: MYCOHERBICIDE and FUSARIUM. Fusarium (a type of mycoherbicide or plant killing fungus) occurs naturally and threatens a broad range of crops, including bananas, maize, wheat and tomatoes. Fusarium varieties can be extremely toxic to humans, and therefore, is classified as a WMD in weaponized form. Fusarium and other Mycoherbicides have been used in the war against illegal crops such as cultivated marijuana and opium poppies.

Thanks to The Hemp Report, I recently learned that a bill requiring the further study of Mycoherbicide was just passed by the House of Representatives and is on it's way to the Senate as H.R.2829EH. Not leaving much to the imagination, the bill calls for a "scientific study of the use of mycoherbicide as a means of illicit drug crop elimination by an appropriate Government scientific research entity."

This is not a new idea. As reported by Dan Russell:

In 1999, Ag/Bio Con, Inc., a Montana-based USDA-connected company with an inside track to Defense Department financing, proposed using a cannabis-killing strain of Fusarium oxysporum in Florida....[eventually] the head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, David B. Struhs, quashed the maniacal idea, pointing out that ... "Fusarium species are capable of evolving rapidly. Mutagenicity is by far the most disturbing factor in attempting to use a Fusarium species as a bioherbicide. It is difficult, if not impossible to control the spread of Fusarium species. The mutated fungi can cause disease in large numbers of crops, including tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn and vines and are normally considered a threat to farmers as a pest, rather than as a pesticide..."

Ok, so Florida is out of the question...butwill the DEA turn actually try to use this stuff elsewhere in the U.S. as part of hemp eradication efforts? I sincerely hope not. I do know that the U.S. government has repeatedly lobbied Colombia to use Fusarium as part of coca eradication efforts. And if H.R.2829EH passes, Latin American countries can look forward to more strong arm tactics, given that the bill calls for a "plan to conduct controlled scientific testing in a major drug producing nation."

There are three other related stories on this that are worth reading:
Mycoherbicide Redux (Narco News), The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn't Die (Wired Magazine) and a recent editorial (which served as the inspiration for this posting) published in The Hemp Report.