Shortly afterwards, the Colombian government brought together a number of experts and created a scientific commission to examine the use of fumigation with herbicides for attacking marijuana production. This commission opposed the use of chemical substances. From there, the issue was passed on to the National Council on Narcotics which had been set up in 1974. This body — an adjunct of the Justice Ministry — was made up of representatives from that ministry and from the Health and Education ministries, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Security Agency , the Director of the National Police Force, the Director of Customs and Excise and the Institute of Family Welfare. In light of the opinion which had been presented by the CNE experts, the Council decided not to apply the procedure of eradicating crops with herbicides. However, some trial sprayings had already been carried out, with the participation of the army and using paraquat, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.6 In short, the Colombian government refused to practice a massive eradication with paraquat, despite the insistence of the Carter administration. Although the US Congress abolished the Percy Amendment in 1981, and under President Ronald Reagan the US began to put increasing pressure on the Turbay government to fumigate chemically, Colombia’s attitude did not yet change. The Colombian executive was able to provide irrefutable evidence that it was taking strong measures against the drug trade, and demonstrated its close collaboration with Washington in various ways: it signed an extradition agreement with the United States in 1979, and an agreement on Mutual Legal Aid in 1980. Meanwhile,macetas de plastico the Colombians adduced scientific and technical arguments to justify their opposition to the eradication alternative. In the early eighties, Bogotá still had a certain margin of maneuverability in some aspects of the drug war.

Colombia’s image abroad was not yet that of a totally drug-ridden country, and in the atmosphere of the Cold War, Colombia was seen as one of Washington’s unconditional allies in the fight against Communism.From the beginning of President Belisario Betancur’s four-year period the US executive began reiterating its thesis about the need to eradicate chemically, and continued to bring pressure to bear on Colombia to this end. In August 1983, a group of US congressmen visited the country and tried to persuade the president to carry out a program of marijuana fumigation. However, they did not meet with success.President Betancur’s objection was the same as that of his predecessor. Yet, the Betancur Conservative Party government changed its opinion in 1984, no doubt because of the murder of the Justice Minister, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, an assassination evidently ordered by Mafia bosses. The government’s change of attitude towards drug trafficking included the extradition of Colombian citizens to the United States and an increased militarization of the fight against drugs. The government also decided to fumigate, despite public controversy and disputes among bureaucrats. Sporadic anti-government demonstrators against chemical eradication were not able to form a socio political coalition with much weight within Colombia itself, nor did the anti-fumigation lobby obtain the support of influential people abroad. In May 1984, the National Council on Narcotics again discussed the possibility of using paraquat for fumigating marijuana plantations, especially those on the Caribbean coast. The Council gave its approval, but left it to Cabinet to decide how chemical substances should be applied. Cabinet gave its approval in that same month, but to avoid controversy over the possible use of paraquat, the government opted for the use of glyphosate. That way the government would be acting in accordance with the US authorities by fumigating, but they would be doing so with a different chemical substance, one which supposedly was less harmful. In June of that year, 1984, the Justice Minister ordered fumigation to begin.Immediately after, protests broke out in Colombia. People in the Caribbean region organized demonstrations against the government’s decision and stirred up the debate for the following six months. The media gave voice to the complaints and criticisms aimed at the use of glyphosate.

Colombia’s National Congress called for a report from the Health Minister, and several members of Congress representing Caribbean constituencies expressed their opposition to chemical spraying.However, the government refused to modify its position. Relatively low internal costs were compensated by the support and the congratulations the administration received from the US executive and the US Congress; fumigation plus extradition and militarization were greatly appreciated by the US authorities, who expressed their approval by offers of further aid. By the end of 1984, according to US statistics, 3,400 hectares of marijuana had been eradicated , and by 1985 the US authorities estimated that some 6,000 hectares had been eradicated . Areas sprayed by herbicides reached 12,000 hectares in 1986 . The center of operations was the Caribbean coastal area, especially the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Perijá mountain range. The area planted with marijuana was considerably reduced, and exports of marijuana to the United States began to fall off noticeably. Before this, Colombia had accounted for 80 percent of the total import of marijuana into the US; now the figure fell to less than 25 percent. Figures seemed to show that the use of glyphosate had resulted in a resounding triumph in the fight against marijuana.However it was no more than a Pyrrhic victory. By 1988 Colombia had once again become the principal exporter of marijuana to the United States, producing approximately 8,000 tons that year.Fumigation, it was true, did produce some positive results, but only partially, and production was transferred from the Caribbean area to the department of Cauca in southern Colombia, where the quantity produced per hectare rose spectacularly from 1.1 metric tons to 3.5 metric tons. The area actually sown in marijuana was reduced, but overall production increased, and plants were camouflaged and disguised by legal crops grown around them. The Colombian producer acted in a manner very similar to that of his US counterpart; in 1985, after the failure of Operation Delta 9 designed to eradicate marijuana crops in the United States, production began to be carried on in small farms, national parks or, hydroponically,ebb and flow table in private basements. Chemical spraying, then, had not produced satisfactory results in Colombia; it had not halted marijuana production, nor was it going to be any more successful when it came to eradicating coca plantations. From 1984 onwards, with the support of the United States, the Colombian government strove to find a chemical substance which could be used to eradicate coca plants without causing any other damage. In December 1985 the herbicide known as garlon-4 was used to destroy approximately 1,000 hectares. However this practice was given up almost immediately, that is in early 1986, since garlon-4 proved to be highly dangerous and damaging, and the company which produced it — the Dow Chemical Corporation — refused to supply it to Colombia for fear of being sued.

By accepting the US insistence on using this method, the Betancur government was tacitly admitting that the problem of narcotics existed primarily in the place where drugs were being produced and going against Colombia’s official notion that drug dealing was a multilateral and international problem. In the matter of drugs, Washington’s pressure on Bogotá became more and more evident and difficult to counter through autonomous strategies of a national nature. Thus the Colombian government’s margin of maneuverability began to be gradually and notoriously diminished when it came to the fight against the drug trade. The administration of Virgilio Barco inherited an even more intricate and worrying situation regarding illegal drugs than that which had been experienced by his two immediate predecessors. It was estimated that Colombian traffickers were supplying 80 percent of the cocaine and 25 percent of the marijuana consumed in the United States, and demand in the US was certainly not diminishing.Colombia’s income from the cocaine trade was increasing enormously and was totally uncontrolled. The social penetration of narcotics was also increasing, as was evidenced at the production and processing sites, as well as in those places where drug traffickers made their investments and exerted their influence. The presence of drug traffickers was felt politically through bribery, intimidation and the straight-out use of force. Violence generated by this phenomenon multiplied notably after extradition laws were passed in 1984, and became even worse once paramilitary groups were organized, especially in the region of the Magdalena river valley. The new Liberal Party government under President Barco felt called upon to step up the intensity of anti-narcotic activities which had been set in motion during the second half of the previous administration, when the Conservative Party was in power. It was thought that chemical eradication should continue in the case of marijuana, while manual eradication was recommended for the coca plantations. Although there was no lack of criticism of these measures, no coalition forces achieved the clout necessary to put a brake on fumigation with herbicides, nor to assess the real progress being made in the fight against illegal drugs. According to the CNE , massive spraying of marijuana plantations never received approval. The facts, however, would seem to indicate the opposite, especially during 1986. Colombia’s official environmental protection agency, INDERENA , denounced the ecological devastation produced by glyphosate in the Tayrona National Park and surrounding districts. Nonetheless, in 1987 some 10,368 hectares were sprayed with this substance, and in 1988, a further 4,400 hectares. The eradication of coca diminished from 2,000 hectares in 1985 to 760 in 1986, and to 230 in 1988. This reduction was due to several factors.First, various technical reports, both official and non-official, pointed out the negative effects of using herbicides, and also demonstrated that a temporary lull in production due to spraying would not necessarily mean the end of illegal crops.In 1985, for example, marijuana crops had occupied 8,000 hectares, yet by 1987 they occupied 13,000 hectares. And as we have seen, large-scale growing of marijuana was transferred from the Caribbean area to Cauca, where conditions were even more favorable and therefore production per hectare increased. Additionally, smoking type marijuana was accompanied by the production of marijuana oil and hashish, so that in the United States the marijuana business actually became more prosperous than ever. Second, those living in the regions submitted to eradication practices became more vociferous in their protests, not only because of the ecological damage being caused by the use of herbicides, but also because of a lack of effective programs to replace illegal crops with a lucrative alternative. Third, there was no agreement within the CNE about what procedures and techniques should be used to fumigate while reducing environmental damage to a minimum. The opposition of local people, the difficulty of undertaking eradication in productive zones which were under the control of guerrilla forces, and a lack of sufficient resources were all factors impeding the taking of unanimous decisions by common consent. Fourth, in 1988 there was a slight change in the government’s strategy for combating the drug trade. Colombia’s executive promoted and supported, once again, a major participation by the armed forces in the fight against drug producers and traffickers. However, the government wished to avoid some of the concomitant problems arising from the army’s previous direct commitment in this area, such as, protests and criticisms by farmers, the risk of greater corruption sparked off by the placing of drug traffickers and Colombian soldiers in the same scenario, and the impossibility of attacking simultaneously all the points in the drug traffickers’ internal network. Emphasis was placed, therefore, on the search for both urban and rural laboratories for cocaine processing, as well as on the arrest of hitmen in the pay of traffickers. Military Intelligence tasks were also included, and an effort was made to round up and capture the leading drug dealers. As a result of these new priorities, both chemical and manual eradication became less intense and affected a reduced area of operations.Fifth, in the light of the poor results produced by the attempt to eradicate marijuana, it was natural that the Colombian authorities should feel frustrated.