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The Middle East Drug Fueling War, Crime and All-Night Parties
- thunderbong 2y agohttps://archive.ph/MOCQ4 https://archive.ph/MOCQ4
- bediger4000 2y agoNow it's "captagon". Used to be "flakka", and before that "krokodil". Those moral panics failed to get the support that meth did, and crack, and angel dust, and heroin and LSD. WSJ trying to gin up a new boogey man drug for middle class suburbanites to be afraid of, so they avoid the dreaded downtown, with all the captagon dealers, it's a lawless hellscape.
- duskwuff 2y agoI don't think those parallels apply here. The article is fairly clear that this is a drug (or, more accurately, a name used for a variety of drugs) in the Middle East, primarily in Syria.
- ablation 2y agoI'm surprised you've managed to take this away from the article.
- bediger4000 2y agoI'm a little older than most HN commentors, and I've seen so very many clearly propagandistic moral panics over new drugs come and go. When an article like this comes up, it's very hard to see it otherwise.
- OutOfHere 2y agoCaptagon is not pseudoephedrine as this silly article says it. Captagon is fenethylline - it breaks down in the body into amphetamine and theophylline. In contrast, pseudoephedrine is used in labs to produce methamphetamine which is too different. Immediate-release pseudoephedrine can in fact be very hard on the heart. Every country has its own favorite drug that fuels war. Back in the day, it was just nicotine via tobacco cigarettes. in WWII it was amphetamine and methamphetamine. In the Vietnam war it was heroin. In Southeast Asia it's meth. In Russia it is vodka. In South America it's coca leaves or cocaine. In Yemen and Somalia, it's khat. In Nigeria it's tramadol.
- duskwuff 2y agoThe drug originally marketed as Captagon was an amphetamine prodrug, yes. What's actually being sold under that name in the Middle East is any number of things; it wouldn't surprise me at all if some of them contained pseudoephedrine.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThere is no evidence I am aware of that Captagon is actually being sold as anything but fenethylline. By your standard, Captagon can be anything and it has no meaning. It can even be caffeine or B12. That would make the article and discussion a whole lot of nothing.
- rightbyte 2y agoNeither e.g. vodka nor tobacco give the explicit tactical advantage amphetamine do, though. Spirits, cannabis and opeoids arguable give tactical disadvantage. I would differ 'humans trying to cope' and 'mindless robot' drugs. The military might proactivly want to hand out amphetamine to increase 'stamina' at the cost of soldier health and some increased risk of war crimes. 'Cope drugs' is rather some sort of damage control.
- everforward 2y agoOpioids were allegedly effective as propaganda in Vietnam because users wouldn't stay down when shot until they were actually dead. It doesn't offset the downsides, but there are advantages. Amphetamines have kind of dubious advantages. The benefits of increased stamina and "courage" are heavily offset by the impact on critical thinking, especially with sustained use. Afaik, the only use by professional militaries is for pilots where the regimen is much easier to monitor and maintain. Russia allegedly used them during the invasion of Ukraine, but I'd be curious if they were given to professional soldiers or conscripts/shock troops. At the end of WWII, the Germans were messing with a tablet that was a compound of cocaine, methamphetamine and oxycodone. I cannot even imagine what the come down from all that plus a 90 km/day marching speed with 20kg of equipment was like.
- Havoc 2y agoOne for the Arab league to sort out. Drugs are after all Haram