In October 2001, a few days before the start of the Afghanistan war, Tony Blair told the Labour Party conference that "the biggest drugs hoard in the world is in Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban". He said then that 90 per cent of the heroin on London streets was from Afghanistan: "The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people, buying their drugs on British streets." The Prime Minister repeated this claim a week later in the Commons, when he announced that the military campaign had begun, telling MPs that the Taliban "is largely funded by the drugs trade".