My curiosity is always piqued when I see an unfamiliar word.
Captagon is a stimulant drug. Its main ingredient is pseudoephedrine, commonly found in cold and flu medication. Syrian-produced captagon is often mixed with unknown quantities of substances such as caffeine, various anesthetics and sedatives, and even toxic levels of zinc and nickel. Pills destined for Saudi Arabia often contain Viagra. Users often pair captagon with other drugs that in recent years have become more available in the region, such as crystal meth and ketamine.
What makes this of Macro interest is that huge quantities are produced and used in the Middle East. Much of the production takes place in Syria, officials and researchers say, with some in Lebanon. The New Lines Institute, a Washington think tank, estimates that the global captagon market is worth about $5.7 billion, more than half as much as the cocaine market in Europe. Of that, the Assad regime fetched an annual average of about $2.4 billion between 2020 to 2022 — roughly one-fourth of Syria’s GDP. Money from drug smuggling has lined the pockets of Iran-backed militias, including Hezbollah.
Jordan has attacked sites in Syria that produce captagon.
This article doesn’t mention Israel as a source or target of captagon. It’s possible that an inter-Arab war could begin over the drug trade.
There are only tribes outside of Jordan and Israel. What is understood as a national government elsewhere is just a poorly laid structure to take over a nation.
Is anyone else skeptical of this “report”? Is it just a coincidence that all the parties involved, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah, are on the US’ enemies list?
Recall, the excuse for the US’ invasion of Panama was Noriega’s alleged drug trafficking.
Why is it that the big bad guy in the fentanyl trade is China, where the chemical precursors supposedly come from. Not the places in Mexico where the fentanyl is actually made. China is an “enemy”.
This is not new. During World War II German soldiers were offered an early form of methamphetamine, which kept them hopped up, unafraid of danger, and hyper aggressive. It was called Pervitin, and also suppressed appetite and increased alertness.
…and not just the German soldiers. I had an old gay rights British friend who had been a Battle of Britain pilot (Hurricane), and he told me that towards the end most of the pilots were high on speed of some sort.
{ It is commonly reported that child soldiers are given drugs to decrease their fear and increase their prowess in battle (Pearn, 2003). The only study that attempted to quantify drug use was that conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2003). It found that occasional or regular consumption of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes was higher for child soldiers in the Congo than for children who had never been recruited. It also compared the rates of use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs before and after recruitment as a child soldier and found they were substantially higher after (ILO, 2003). }
This report is about child soldiers and their PTSD. The comments about “performance enhancing” drugs … Is limited.
ralph chose this article due to being NCBI and therefore “reliable”.
There are LOTS of reports, dating back a couple decades, by other sources about African child soldiers given drugs before being unleashed.
Drugs are also reportedly used to facilitate sex trafficking.
The US Air Force dispenses speed in various forms to its pilots to this day
Indeed. One of the board members of the aviation museum near my home lectured one evening, about his times in a P3 in Nam. One night, when he was co-pilot, he suddenly realized he had been asleep. He looked to see if the pilot had noticed. The pilot was asleep too. He looked at the fight engineer. Also sound asleep. He looked down the fuselage. Every member of the crew was asleep. He said they had all been issued stimulants to keep them awake, but he didn’t want to take one of those things. He barked into the intercom “hey, how about some coffee up here?”, loud enough to wake everyone up. So they finished the mission safely. If Randy, nor anyone else, had woken up on his own, the plane would have kept flying on autopilot, at about 1000 feet, until they hit a mountain, or ran out of fuel.
You have to go back further. The US and Russia split the world. Syria chose Russia even before Israel was founded in 1946.
Why? Not because of the US and Israel.
Because of France and England. The colonial powers were being cast aside and Russia was an option for Syria just as the cold war began.
Where is Iran? How close to Russia? Azerbaijan is terrified of Russia and Iran. Remember Hitler’s and Stalin’s pact for Poland?
The US wanted control over Iran. Would the Soviets have dumped the democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1950s? Of course but no one thinks about that.
Why is Israel important today? How about a model of religious freedom? A model of democracy? A helping hand to the one Arab democratic country Jordan, plus a protector of that nation against the Arab influences that would undermine the democracy. Jordan is 65% Palestinian.
Why else? Because the Muslim Brotherhood would start 5 or 6 wars in Arab nations with Iranian Russian backing. Israel is a counter balance. The US has a defensive structure of allies. The Russians and Iranians have quite the opposite. Why consider any of us the bad guys?
BTW Syria is only a problem for the Syrians. Iran is mostly a problem for the Iranians.
Sometimes other people do exist. We are not the only people.
