US Taxpayers have been funding heroin production in Afghanistan for decades

U.S. taxpayer money has been used to pay for irrigation canals, farming tools, and fertilizer that have helped increase poppy growing and heroin production in Afghanistan, mostly benefiting Taliban drug traffickers, according to U.S. officials.

Afghanistan is still the largest source of opium, which is used to make heroin, even though the United States has spent over $8 billion on anti-drug efforts there since the war began in October 2001.

Last year, opium farming and production grew a lot, mostly helping the Taliban. U.S. officials say it gave them about 60 percent of their funds, worth nearly $200 million.

USAID funded with US taxpayer money, hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban