Afghans Target Poppies Of Opium

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. on Monday agreed to hand out millions of dollars in development aid to provinces in Afghanistan that have eliminated or reduced the production of opium poppies, the raw ingredient in making heroin.

The poppy crop in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's supply of opium, is linked to corruption, addiction and a drug trade that bankrolls the Taliban insurgency.

Curbing the cultivation of poppies is the goal of a U.S. program that has doled out $80 million  since 2007. That includes the $38.7 million the U.S. announced it is giving to 27 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces that either reduced poppy cultivation by more than 10 percent or became poppy-free this year

Afghan opium addicts squat in the bombed-out ruins of the former Russian Cultural Center, 
in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 2.

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