CIA secretly deployed modified poppy seeds to disrupt Afghanistan's opium trade

The CIA secretly deployed billions of genetically modified poppy seeds via clandestine night flights to disrupt Afghanistan's opium trade. This classified operation, running intermittently for over a decade until around 2015, aimed to reduce heroin production by cross-pollinating native poppies with modified strains yielding less alkaloid. The program, which began in 2004, was part of broader, largely unsuccessful US counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, with similar tactics later considered for Mexico.