What Is Captagon and Why Is It Called the ‘Drug of Jihad’?
by Guy D. McCardle
22 hours ago
These tiny white pills, known as Captagon, have fueled wars, propped up regimes, and turned desperation into a deadly economy in the Middle East.
War is a messy, brutal business, and it often thrives on the desperation of those who fight it. In the modern Middle East, a small white pill quietly became a key player on the battlefield, fueling chaos and killing and lining the pockets of warlords and despots alike. That pill is Captagon, a synthetic amphetamine that has turned conflict zones into testing grounds for its mind-altering effects.
This isn’t some Hollywood story; it’s a reality that ties together the worlds of illicit drug trafficking, geopolitics, and the dirty tricks of war. At the center of this pharmaceutical cyclone was none other than Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, a country that had become both a producer and exporter of captagon on an industrial scale. Let’s dig into how a potent mix of chemistry and corruption fueled Jihad-minded soldiers and Assad’s political regime.
What Is Captagon?
Like most illegal drugs of abuse today, Captagon used to have legitimate medical uses. It is a synthetic stimulant drug that was originally developed in Germany during the 1960s. It was created under the generic name fenethylline and was initially used to treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and depression. The drug’s chemical structure combines amphetamine and theophylline, making it both a codrug and a prodrug—essentially a compound designed to enhance its therapeutic effects.
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