Colombia Tests Drones to Kill Plants Used for Cocaine

BOGOTÁ, Colombia--With drug crops booming, Colombia's police are busily testing whether drones carrying defoliants can efficiently kill the leaf used to make cocaine and win the support of Trump administration officials concerned about this country's growing capacity to supply drugs to American consumers. Antidrug officials here say that in recent weeks they have deployed 10 drones, each weighing 50 pounds when loaded with herbicide, in southwest Nariño province. The small, remotely guided aircraft destroyed hundreds of acres of coca in a first round of tests, said police and the company contracted by the government to supply the drones. Colombia's new president, Iván Duque, said that he wants some kind of aerial fumigation of coca fields, which expanded 160% to 516,000 acres from 2012 to 2017, the White House reported in June. But he prefers drones over planes to drop the herbicide, which would mitigate damage to legal crops growing adjacent to coca fields.