14. Aerial defoliation has caused environmental and health damage
During the 1980s the United States began supporting the aerial spraying of large areas of Colombia and other countries to eradicate coca and cannabis plantations. Using primarily the product Roundup Ultra, manufactured by the Monsanto Corporation and paid for by the United States as part of the War on Drugs, several hundred thousand acres of land in Mexico, Central America, and South America were treated. In the 1990s, despite spraying having begun nearly a decade before, production of cocaine in Colombia increased. By 2002 coca plantations had spread to 22 Colombian provinces. Three years earlier it had been limited to 12. In several of those, the production of coca simply moved to other areas within the province.
Residents of the areas which were subjected to aerial spraying reported health effects beginning in the late 1990s, with skin and respiratory conditions attributed to the herbicides. Although several states and health associations have linked the active ingredient in Roundup Ultra – glysophate – to cancer, other groups have denied that the chemical is carcinogenic. However there is no dispute that the aerial spraying displaced hundreds of thousands of citizens who were not part of the production of the coca cartels, and caused the cartels’ expansion and corrupting influence into areas not previously involved in the drug trade. In 2002 alone 75,000 Colombians were forced to relocate within the country, their ability to make a living through the growing of legitimate crops destroyed by the defoliation. The US State Department under seven presidents ignored the concerns of the Colombians directly affected by the program.