In 2021, the world watched as the US military retreated chaotically from Afghanistan after 20-years of war.

But in Afghanistan, America was defeated as much by the illegal heroin trade as by the Taliban itself. This is how heroin has fundamentally reshaped Afghanistan as a country for decades – and how you can’t understand the West’s failure there without it.

Watch more from this series:

The Opioid Crisis Sweeping Africa
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Why Mexican Cartels Use American Guns
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How Mexican Drug Cartels Make Billions
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Check out the VICE World News playlist for global reporting you won't find elsewhere:    • World News  

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