Talk:Herbicide spraying in Mexico

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Discussion for: Herbicide spraying in Mexico • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Herbicide spraying in Mexico treats the Mexican aerial spraying of cannabis and opium poppy from 1975, the paraquat found in American marijuana as a result, the United States funding bar of 1978–1981 (the Percy amendment) and what the sources say about the effects on growers and the trade. Opium poppy appears where the same campaign and documents cover both crops. The wider United States part is on United States and cannabis eradication abroad; the Golden Triangle highlands and Operation Condor's task force are on Sierra Madre Occidental.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Title

• The page is titled by country and method, not by operation name, because the sources disagree on the names (below) and "Operation Condor" is also the name of the South American Plan Cóndor. The operation names are given in the text with who uses them.

Sources and how they were read

• Read in full on the publishers' or archives' own sites: Cedillo (2021), the Kellogg Institute working paper; the GAO statement GAO/T-NSIAD-87-42 (1987) and report GAO/NSIAD-89-24 (1988) (gao.gov); Public Laws 95-384 and 97-113 (congress.gov, govinfo.gov); Turner and co-authors (1978) in the UN Bulletin on Narcotics (unodc.org).
• The 1969 task force report was read in the National Security Archive's scan. The Senate hearing of 9 May 1978 (Stroup, Anaya) is held in the CIA reading room and was read in a full-text copy of that scan.
• Adams (proceedings of NIDA's December 1981 epidemiology meeting; no publication year in the copy) was read in an Internet Archive full-text copy of the NIDA microfiche; the copy shows no reliable page numbers, so none are cited. The House select committee's annual report for 1983 (H. Rept. 98-598) and its hearings of 12–13 October 1983 were read in Internet Archive full-text copies.
• Pérez Ricart (2020) was read in the author's accepted manuscript, whose pagination differs from the published article, so only the article's page range is cited and he is paraphrased, not quoted.
• Landrigan and co-authors (1983) were read in the abstract only.
• The RAND study (Reuter and Ronfeldt 1992) was read in the Defense Technical Information Center copy; page 20 is the printed page.

Names and dates of the campaigns

• Cedillo (2021, pp. 6–9): Operation Canador was Mexico's name for the joint manual campaign from 1969 until 1975; Trizo followed, with phase I ending 15 April 1976 and phase II from early September to late November 1976; the DEA went on calling the 1977 operation Trizo, while Mexico named it Condor.
• Pérez Ricart (2020): the DEA called the campaign TRIZO; in Mexico it was Operation CANADOR. The article gives both accounts without merging them. *Sierra Madre Occidental* dates Trizo from 15 November 1975 on Cedillo's account.

Who paid for spraying marijuana

• The positions are given in the article with their holders. The GAO's figure of more than $150 million since 1977 covers the aerial programme against both crops; no source read separates the marijuana share.
• The Christian Science Monitor (20 December 1983) gives $94 million of US aid over a decade, in a passage on poppy spraying; not used. Its 9 April 1981 report says the Mexican spraying was "funded by Washington"; not used here, as the article already gives the funding positions of the officials and scholars.

Paraquat contamination figures

• Turner and co-authors (1978): 20 of 160 kilogram bricks (12.5 per cent) contained paraquat; none seized before 20 October 1976; 20 of 115 (17.4 per cent) after that date. Landrigan and co-authors (1983): 13 of 61 south-western samples (21 per cent) in March 1978. Cedillo writes of concern for "up to a quarter"; Pérez Ricart cites an independent 1978 figure of about 12.5 per cent. The article gives Turner's, Landrigan's and Cedillo's.
• The CDC estimate of 50 to 100 smokers a year at risk (via Adams) and the House committee's mention of an HEW estimate of 100 to 200 are both federal figures of the same period; the article gives the first.

The 1978 NORML suit

• Stroup told the Senate on 9 May 1978 that Judge Joseph Waddy had heard arguments and taken the case under advisement. The outcome of the suit was not found in the sources read.

Repeal or replacement

• The House select committee (1984) and Adams describe the 1981 change as a repeal; the 1981 statute rewrote section 481(d) of the Foreign Assistance Act, replacing the funding bar with a notification duty and a marker-development provision. The article quotes the statute and attributes "repeal" to the committee.

Not used

• The Frontline chronology's "two weeks" for Operation Intercept (the State Department's dates are used on United States and cannabis eradication abroad).
• Excerpts on the Rancho Búfalo plantation (1984), which concern a raid, not spraying.