By Latin America Reports | Created at 2026-08-28 22:51:39 | Updated at 2026-08-29 05:49:29
7 hours ago
Bogotá, Colombia – Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has repealed a law banning the use of glyphosate, a controversial herbicide used in drug eradication programs.
Glyphosate, commonly sold under the brand name Roundup, is a broad-spectrum chemical historically used to weed out coca crops, the raw ingredient used in cocaine, but was banned in Colombia in 2015 due to its deleterious effect on human health and the natural environment.
With the ban, de la Espriella moves closer to his campaign promise of resuming aerial fumigation of coca crops but still faces constitutional constraints on using glyphosate.
The repeal of the 2015 law appeared in the president’s official diary today but he has yet to make a statement about it.
Forced eradication is a flagship policy proposal of the president, who was inaugurated earlier this month on a promise to restore order to the country and crackdown on armed criminal groups. During the campaign he described coca crops as “the root cause of all forms of violence” in Colombia.
While de la Espriella pledged to forcibly eradicate crops using pesticides during his campaign, he said he would not use glyphosate, instead suggesting plans to deploy new, safer chemicals.
“From the very first day of the administration, Colombia will resume aerial spraying of illicit crops using state-of-the-art bioherbicides, with technologies that pose no risk to human health or the environment,” read a statement on his campaign site published in June.
Colombia’s National Council on Narcotics banned Glyphosate in 2015, citing “sufficient evidence of the health risks to humans,” among other factors. The World Health Organization also classifies the pesticide as a “probable human carcinogen.”
It is unclear what alternative chemical de la Espriella plans to use and why he has repealed the ban on Glyphosate.
He also faces further legal obstacles to aerial spraying, chiefly a 2017 constitutional clause which stipulates several pre-requisites for such a policy to be rolled out.
First, the executive must present an environmental plan to the National Environmental Licensing Authority explaining how the ecological impact of spraying will be minimized.
It must also consult communities living in the territories where coca crops are present, particularly Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and farming populations.
Fifty-three percent of coca cultivations are located in ‘special management zones’, which encompass national parks, forest reserves, Indigenous reserves, and Afro territories.
Under the 2017 law, the government must also be given the blessing of the National Health Institute, which must emit a “technical interpretation in favor” of aerial spraying.
Getting approval from these communities and institutions may not be easy, as Glyphosate is a fiercely divisive issue in Colombia.
Elizabeth Dickinson, Deputy Director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, outlined the two main positions on spraying.
“There is a strong current that… believes that you can’t get a handle on the drug issue unless you start spraying coca again. And that’s really the current that has an influence in this government,” she explained.
Dickinson noted that aerial spraying managed to greatly reduce coca production in the early 2000s under Plan Colombia, a joint initiative between ex-President Álvaro Uribe and Washington.
But many drug scholars and scientists argue that any gains from forced eradication will only be temporary, given producers’ ability to begin growing in other areas.
“They would essentially hopscotch to new areas because you could replant [the crops] so quickly,” said Dickinson.
She noted that coca plants have been genetically improved in recent years, allowing them to grow faster and yield more cocaine.
Other critics of forced eradication say it punishes the lowest chain in the drug market: poor farmers and pickers who work with coca because it is often the only viable cash crop.
According to Dickinson, this could have knock-on effects for de la Espriella’s plans to securitize coca-producing regions, which are often controlled by armed groups and lack state presence.
“You’re sort of alienating this whole sector of the population that ideally you need to have on board in order to recover territorial control and really reestablish state presence and state credibility in these areas,” said the analyst.
Featured image description: A coca cultivation in Putumayo, Colombia.
Featured image credit: Alfie Pannell.
