What do you do if you're a Russian biological warfare expert who finds himself redundant because the Cold War is over? Well one option is to let your former enemies, the ones whose crops, population and water supplies you've been targeting for years, recruit you as a mercenary in their drug wars. Developing biological agents to attack drug plants will keep the wolf from the door. And that's just what some enterprising Russian scientists in Uzbekistan have done. They are now working for the United Nations International Drug Control programme and being paid by the British and US Governments to develop a fungus that will attack and destroy the Afghan opium crop. Expected to be ready for aerial spraying in two to three years, the fungus will also be genetically altered to make it even more aggressive and destructive. The idea is to produce a strain that will keep on mutating so that the poppy cannot develop resistance to the fungus.

At the same time the US has developed a fungus that will attack the coca plant. They recently put the screws on the Colombian government to let them trial the fungus there. Despite trying to link this to a package of military aid (you can have the guns if you have the fungus), the Colombians have so far managed to resist US pressure. Small wonder when the state of Florida recently refused to trial a sister fungus developed, by the same US scientist, that attacks marijuana plants. If its too dangerous to trial near American citizens, why the hell should the people of a developing country be expected to put up with it?


You see there's some real problems with these 'magic bullet' solutions. To begin with, plant diseases like this mutate naturally. This means they can develop the capacity to attack plants other than the ones they're aimed at. Crops like corn, maize wheat, for example, basic food staples. Some can even cross barriers to attack animals and thus, potentially, human beings. They stick around for a long, long time (years) contaminating the soil and making it unusable. Course that doesn't worry anyone. It's a risky world, they say, trust us to build in safeguards. As if anyone believes scientists anymore. And, although none of the Muppets who run drug wars appear to appreciate this, even if you were able to wipe out the opium poppy, say, it would not be very long before synthetic opiates replaced heroin. Probably fentanyl, or fentanyl derivatives. The knowledge is already there, but why bother when you've got God's Own Medicine heroin? The same applies to coca and cocaine. Bring out the copy of The Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture (3rd edition), please and clean that bathub!


There are some even bigger questions here though. Why do scientists think that they can play god? The coca bush, the opium poppy and human beings have enjoyed a largely beneficial two way relationship since the beginning of time. Opium and coca use are part of the cultures of certain societies and groups What gives anyone the right to try to remove them from the planet? The arrogance of scientists and the politicians who are their paymasters is breathtaking. Then there is the question that there is supposed to be a worldwide ban on chemical and biological warfare. You might start out playing with agents that attack drug crops and end up with giving rogue countries the technical know-how to attack food crops. Moreover, you can't deploy these weapons without the permission of the Colombian government and the Taliban who are the de facto (if not the legal) government of Afghanistan. And right now it doesn't look as if either are going to say: 'Yes, please send us your plant plagues'. Course, if these diseases sort of spread naturally like, no one would be to blame, would they?


Finally, we come to the fact that these magic bullet solutions are solutions to problems in Britain and America, namely the existence of demand for mind altering substances, not problems in the producing countries. But to deal with demand for heroin and cocaine in Britain and the USA would entail dealing with the economic and social conditions which breed problem drug use and that would never do. So, instead, we'll blame the producer countries and poison their crops and population in the name of protecting ourselves from drugs and drug related crime. After all, if the Cold War's over, the only employment generating conflict left for ex-spooks, the military and mad scientists is the drug war.


Anyone who doubts the above should have seen last month's Panorama programme ‘Britain's Secret War on Drugs’. As well as telling the tale of the opium poppy fungus, it also looked at the role of the British military and intelligence services in Tony Blair's new war on drugs and drug users. And though it raised some questions about the use of the fungus, it was clear from the way the BBC presented it that there was no questioning of the necessity of a war on drugs. The whole emphasis of the programme was on the need to beat drug related crime. Something which costs the country £3-4 billion a year, a senior customs official claimed. The fact that nobody knows the total cost of property crime in this country (try asking the Home Office if you don't believe me) let alone the cost of drug related crime, didn't worry this guy (see AMAZING DRUG WAR FACTS in this issue). If you don’t believe us when we say Britain (in the persons of Tony Blair and Jack Straw) has signed up to the US war on drugs, they should have watched this programme. We are now truly in a war on drugs. Forced treatment at home and biological warfare abroad. When you remember that no one used biological agents in the Second World War (not even evil bastards like Hitler and Stalin), the era of 'total war', then you know its time to get worried.