The Colombian Executive presided over by Abelardo De La Espriella has nullified this Friday a resolution of the National Council of Narcotics approved in 2015 that prohibited the spraying with glyphosate, a high-potency herbicide, on illicit crops.
The decree signed by the Presidency, cited by the newspaper 'El Tiempo', specifies that this decision "does not imply the automatic resumption" of spraying nor does it authorize the immediate use of manned aircraft, since the Constitutional Court established a series of prior requirements to allow its application in areas of narcocultivation.
Among those conditions is that the National Authority of Environmental Licenses design a specific environmental management plan and that a consultation process be carried out with the communities potentially affected by this strategy, in addition to obtaining the endorsement of the National Institute of Health.
The ruling of the Constitutional Court also establishes that there must be a regulation issued by an independent body; a permanent monitoring of the associated risks; a scientific investigation "with guarantees of rigor and impartiality" and "objective and conclusive evidence demonstrating the absence of harm to health and the environment".
Colombia suspended in 2015 the use of this substance to massively fumigate illegal crops due to doubts about its possible effects on health. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO), concluded then that there is "limited evidence" that glyphosate may be carcinogenic to humans.
De La Espriella recently highlighted that, in the first 15 days of his mandate, which began on August 7, the authorities seized more than twelve tons of cocaine and eleven of marijuana. "Drugs are the worst cancer of Colombia. And cancer is not contemplated: it is excised," he stated on his social media.