To Spike or Not to Spike?

By Richard Stengel

Tebuthiuron, better known by the trade name Spike, is a herbicide used to get rid of mesquite from rangeland and brush from along utility power lines in the arid American Southwest. Made only by Eli Lilly, the giant Indianapolis chemical company, Spike attacks woody plants for up to three years. After searching for several years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture discovered that Spike not only kills weeds but may be the first effective herbicide against the hardy coca plant, the source of cocaine.

As part of its war on drugs, the U.S. reached an agreement with Peru to test Spike's effectiveness on its cocaine crop. The State Department wants to supply Peru with the herbicide for an eradication project in the Upper Huallaga Valley, along the eastern Andes, where much of the world's coca is grown. Peru would get the assistance; Lilly would get the order; and the coca would get annihilated.

Last month, however, Lilly suddenly announced that it would not sell Spike to Peru or the U.S. Government. Reason: the herbicide had not been fully tested in Peru. The company was undoubtedly reacting to protests by environmentalists, who claim that use of the herbicide on the Andes' delicate ecosystem could turn it into a desert. Just after Lilly's announcement, Walter Gentner, a recently retired research scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, complained that he had been pressured by the State Department to condone use of Spike in Peru before its impact had been assessed.

The question of whether to Spike or not to Spike puts Government antidrug crusaders, environmentalists and corporate America in an awkward three-way tug-of-war. Last week Sandra Marquardt of the environmental group Greenpeace accused the State Department of a "scorched-earth tactic that threatens to wipe out most plant life in the region for five years or more." Scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency say Tebuthiuron can harm useful vegetation if it leaches into groundwater. Ecologists contend that it would be difficult for farmers to grow crops after the coca has been destroyed. They point out that Spike is not meant to be used on the moist, hilly terrain of the eastern Andes. Warns Edgardo Machado, a Peruvian coca researcher: "The rain will drag the herbicide into the soil at lower levels of the valley, where there are farms."

The State Department has accused Lilly of going AWOL in the war against narcotics. U.S. officials say the crucial test for Spike will be conducted in the Andes over the next 90 days and insist that no decision should be made until then. In a press conference last week, Ann Wrobleski, Assistant Secretary of State for international narcotics, asserted that the Upper Huallaga Valley "is not suitable for crops. Peasants moved into the valley to grow coca, period." She pointed out that the cocaine traffickers, who use the area to process the raw leaf into cocaine paste, have inflicted the most environmental damage. She cited a Peruvian study estimating that in 1986, traffickers dumped some 100 million liters of harmful chemicals into the area's rivers.

The State Department is trying to persuade Lilly to reverse its decision. Meanwhile, they will continue to press Peru to rip out the coca plants by hand. Though ecologically safe, that method has drawbacks: the program last year managed to clear only 876 of the 395,000 acres under coca cultivation.

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington