A Small-Town Judge Just Grounded Colombia’s Return to Aerial Spraying of Coca
COLOMBIA · DRUG POLICY
Key Facts
- —The order A circuit court in Puerto Asís, Putumayo, provisionally suspended all aerial spraying of glufosinate in the department.
- —The instrument A tutela, Colombia’s fast constitutional rights action. This is a provisional measure, not a final judgment.
- —The target Resolution 007 of 2026 of the National Drug Council, which authorised a seven-day pilot.
- —The history Colombia banned aerial glyphosate in 2015 after the World Health Organization called it probably carcinogenic.
- —The catch The government swapped the chemical, not the method. The court suspended the method anyway.
- —The test Any restart must satisfy conditions the Constitutional Court set in 2017, including prior consultation.
The government had approved a seven-day pilot using a different chemical to the one banned in 2015. A provisional order from a Putumayo court stopped it before it started.
Colombia’s president spent five weeks dismantling his predecessor’s peace policy. A circuit court in a border town has now grounded his aerial spraying plan.
The Juzgado Tercero Promiscuo del Circuito de Puerto Asís suspended the spraying of coca crops across Putumayo. Infobae and Pulzo reported the order on 11 September.
It is provisional, not final. The judge suspended the operation while gathering technical information before deciding the underlying case.
What Was Stopped
The order covers any spraying of glufosinate ammonium from the air in that department. It names the legal instrument the programme rests on.
That instrument is Resolution 007 of 2026, issued by Colombia’s National Drug Council. The City Paper Bogotá reported that it authorised a seven-day pilot project.
The pilot was a test, not the start of routine fumigation. It carried its own limits, excluding protected environmental areas.
It also excluded territories of Indigenous or Afro-Colombian communities unless prior consultation had been completed. Consulta previa is a constitutional requirement in Colombia, not an administrative courtesy.
Why Colombia Stopped Spraying in the First Place
For two decades Colombia sprayed coca from aircraft using glyphosate. The programme was known by its Spanish acronym, PECIG.
The National Drug Council suspended it by resolution in 2015. The trigger was the World Health Organization’s cancer agency classifying glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans.
Colombia’s health ministry recommended stopping aerial use. Communities in spray zones had reported miscarriages, birth defects and contaminated water, claims that remain contested.
Two years later the Constitutional Court set the terms for any return. Judgment T-236 of 2017 found objective evidence of significant risk to health.
The Conditions Nobody Has Met
The 2017 ruling did not ban spraying forever. It made restarting conditional, and the conditions are demanding.
Any decision to resume must rest on objective and conclusive evidence that there is no harm to health or the environment. The burden sits with the government, not with the communities.
Risk must be regulated by an authority independent of the body doing the spraying. Evaluation must be permanent and the science impartial.
Prior consultation with affected ethnic communities is mandatory before resumption. The court also required consultation afterwards where impacts are direct.
A Different Chemical, the Same Argument
This is where the government’s manoeuvre becomes visible. Glufosinate ammonium is not glyphosate, and the 2015 suspension named glyphosate.
Swapping the herbicide sidesteps the specific resolution. It does not obviously sidestep the constitutional reasoning.
That reasoning was about the method and about the rights of the people underneath it. The chemical was the occasion, not the principle.
Glufosinate is a broad-spectrum herbicide with its own regulatory history. It has been withdrawn from approved use in the European Union.
That is not a finding about Colombian conditions. It is not nothing either.
The Puerto Asís court did not rule on toxicity. It suspended the operation until the agencies involved hand over the technical information the judge asked for.
What This Means for the Security Plan
Abelardo de la Espriella took office on 7 August promising force where his predecessor promised negotiation. Aerial eradication was the visible half of that.
The other half was closing every peace process, which he completed this week. Both halves are now running into courts rather than into armed groups.
A provisional tutela measure from a circuit court is not the end of the programme. The government can supply the information, contest the ruling, or move the pilot elsewhere.
But it establishes the shape of the fight. Colombia’s constitutional architecture makes a president’s drug policy answerable to the communities it is flown over.
That is unusual by regional standards, and it is why the 2017 judgment matters more than any single resolution. Whoever wants to spray has to prove the case first.
More: Colombia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a tutela?
It is Colombia’s fast-track constitutional action for protecting fundamental rights. Any judge can hear one, decisions come quickly, and provisional measures can be issued before the case is decided.
Is aerial spraying banned in Colombia?
Not permanently. It was suspended in 2015, and the Constitutional Court ruled in 2017 that it may resume only if strict evidentiary, regulatory and consultation conditions are met.
What is glufosinate ammonium?
A broad-spectrum herbicide, distinct from glyphosate, which the government proposed using in place of it. It has been withdrawn from approved use in the European Union.
Does this stop eradication altogether?
No. Manual eradication and interdiction continue. The order suspends aerial spraying in one department while a judge examines the case.
Sources: Infobae Colombia, Pulzo, The City Paper Bogotá, El País, Corte Constitucional de Colombia, Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes, UNODC.
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