Pubdate: Tues, 27 July 1999 Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Copyright: 1999, The Tribune Co. Contact: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm Author: Rick Bragg of The New York Times FUNGUS HAS PROMISE AGAINST MARIJUANA Miami - For decades, the hard part for drug agents stalking Florida's marijuana growers was finding their crop. Growers weave their plants among corn stalks and tomato vines to foil aerial searches. In swamps, growers make berms out of muck and chicken wire and plant their crop, leaving water moccasins to stand guard. Hidden in Florida's lush landscape, the camouflaged marijuana plants often foiled the small army of law officers, helicopters and drug-sniffing dogs. Now, the state's new Office of Drug Control chief hopes to kill Florida's marijuana business by someday dusting suspected areas with a pot-eating, soil-borne fungus called Fusarium oxysporum. It is a plan that has some politicians and Florida drug enforcement officials excited, and some environmentalists worried. The fungus, a bioherbicide attacks plants like marijuana and is otherwise harmless, said its developer, Ag/Bio Con., of Montana. "Is it safe, and does it work?" asked Jim McDonough, who was hired by Gov. Jeb Bush to head Florida's Office of Drug Control. "I've heard some of the top scientists in the country say, 'Yes."' McDonough, director of strat-egy for Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's top antidrug official, said the fungus will not be used until it is tested under rigid controls at a Florida test site. He has not pre-sented the plan to Bush. "When you deal with science, you deal with the cost of advancing and what is the cost of not advanc-ing," said McDonough, adding that 47 percent of all marijuana seized in the United States is taken in Florida - much of it home-grown. Most years, drug agents destroy more than 100,000 plants. In 1992, they destroyed more than 240,000 plants. Florida has seen its environment ravaged by supposedly harm less plants that thrived in a damp, hot climate and overwhelmed indigenous plants. Some environmentalists say the fungus is risky, that it could mutate and cause disease in wild plants and in crops. Scientists are cautious of introducing any foreign, living thing into Florida's environment. While pythons as long as pickup trucks have been found under South Florida houses, most problems have been with vegetable matter. Kudzu, a Chinese vine that has grown rampant in the South since its introduction in the 1920s to thwart soil erosion, has swallowed houses and acres of roadside in Florida, growing a foot a day. Melaleuca trees, planted, decades ago to help drain the Everglades because they suck upwater, has infested thousands of acres. 94 I personally do not like the idea of messing with Mother Nature," said Bill Graves, senior biologist at the University of Florida Research Center in Homestead. "I believe that if this fungus is unleashed for this kind of problem, it's going to create its own problems. If it isn't executed effectively, it's going to target and kill rare and endangered plants and I feel that this can lead to a much bigger problem." David Struhs, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, wrote of the dangers to McDonough. 93Fusarium species are capable of evolving rapidly," he wrote. 'Mutagenicity is by far the most disturbing factor in attempting to use a Fusarium species as a bioherbicide. It is difficult, if not impossible, to control the spread of Fusarium species." The fungi can cause disease in crops, such as tomatoes, peppers, flowers, corn and vine crops, he wrote. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea