New From NAP.The control of illicit-drug trafficking and drug use is a difficult and complex process that involves a variety of prevention, control, treatment, and law enforcement strategies. Eradication strategies for controlling illicit-drug crops are used to target the beginning of the drug-supply chain by preventing or reducing crop yields. Mycoherbicides have been proposed as an eradication tool to supplement the current methods of herbicide spraying, mechanical removal, and manual destruction of illicit-drug crops.
Some people regard them as preferable to chemical herbicides for controlling illicit-drug crops because of their purported specificity to only one plant species or a few closely related species. As living microorganisms, they have the potential to provide long-term control if they can persist in the environment and affect later plantings. Research on mycoherbicides against illicit-drug crops has focused on three pathogens: Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cannabis for cannabis (Cannabis sativa), F. oxysporum f.sp. erythroxyli for coca (Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense), and Crivellia papaveracea or Brachycladium papaveris (formerly known as Pleospora papaveracea and Dendryphion penicillatum, respectively) for opium poppy (Papaver somniferum).
