“Syria is a tremendous problem in that it’s a collapsed security sector, because of its porous borders,
because of the presence of so many criminal elements and organized networks,” the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) regional representative, Masood Karimipour, told Voice of America
There is a great deal of trafficking being done of all sorts of illicit goods guns, drugs, money, people. But what is being manufactured there and who is doing the manufacturing, that’s not something we have visibility into from a distance.”
A powerful amphetamine tablet based on the original synthetic drug known as "fenethylline," Captagon quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing Syria's fighters to stay up for days, killing with a numb, reckless abandon.
"You can't sleep or even close your eyes, forget about it," said a Lebanese user, one of three who appeared on camera without their names for a BBC Arabic documentary that aired in September. "And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it."
"I felt like I own the world high," another user said. "Like I have power nobody has. A really nice feeling.""There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon," a third man added.
Captagon has been around in the West since the 1960s, when it was given to people suffering from hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression, according to a Reuters report published in 2014. By the 1980s, according to Reuters, the drug's addictive power led most countries to ban its use.
The United State classified fenethylline ("commonly known by the trademark name Captagon") as a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act in 1981, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Still, the drug didn't exactly disappear. VOA notes that while Westerners have speculated that the drug is being used by Islamic State fighters, the biggest consumer has for years been Saudi Arabia. In 2010, a third of the world's supply about seven tons ended up in Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters.
VOA estimated that as many as 40,000 to 50,000 Saudis go through drug treatment each year.
“My theory is that Captagon still retains the veneer of medical respectability,” Justin Thomas, an assistant professor of psychology and psychotherapy at the UAE’s Zayed University and author of "Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States," told VOA in 2010. “It may not be viewed as a drug or narcotic because it is not associated with smoking or injecting.” CONTINUE READING
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