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Colombia Ending US Eradication Program, Revamps Drug Policy

© AP Photo / Luis RobayoColombia has announced that it will stop using Monsanto's controversial herbicide glyphosate - the active ingredient in its bestselling RoundUp - on illicit coca crops as part of state efforts to eradicate the plants.
Colombia has announced that it will stop using Monsanto's controversial herbicide glyphosate - the active ingredient in its bestselling RoundUp - on illicit coca crops as part of state efforts to eradicate the plants. - Sputnik International
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Colombia is overhauling its anti-drug strategy and next month will end US-backed aerial spraying of the crop used to make cocaine, a tactic that had been a fixture of the drug war for two decades.

Instead of using American-piloted planes to fumigate large swaths of Colombian land, the new strategy will rely more on manual eradication.

"Colombia doesn't need to continue being the biggest exporter of coca on the planet and we're going to prove it," President Juan Manuel Santos said while unveiling the new strategy on Tuesday.

Santos decided in May to end aerial spraying of herbicides on coca crops after the World Health Organization said the popular weed killer glyphosate probably causes cancer.

An Afghan boy walks through a poppy field in Khogyani district of Jalalabad east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, April 11, 2013. When foreign troops arrived in Afghanistan in 2001, one of their goals was to stem drug production. Instead, they have concentrated on fighting insurgents, and have often been accused of turning a blind eye to the poppy fields. - Sputnik International
US Identifies 22 Countries as Major Drug Producers, Traders - DoS

Over the past 20 years, more than 4 million acres in Colombia have been sprayed with glyphosate to kill coca plants, the Associated Press reports.

As part of the new plan, growers who move from coca to alternative crops will receive financial and technical assistance.

The amount of land under coca cultivation in Colombia rose 39% in 2014 to about 276,000 acres, according to the US government. That upward trend could continue with the end of aerial spraying, Columbia's inspector general warned.

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