Different Perspectives (DDN Article)
‘Let me take you to Columbia,’ said Sanho Tree, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and a director of its Drug Policy Project. ‘Here farmers grow coca because it makes economic sense to them,’ he said. ‘They don’t stand a chance of growing other crops and coca is one crop that doesn’t require much infrastructure.’ Yet the government had been trying to eradicate coca for decades, primarily through crop dusters – aircraft that sprayed the area with a potent form of Roundup, a herbicide that caused rashes, vomiting and illness as well as the death of crops and animals.