A drug control officer in the central city of Homs said he had observed the effects of Captagon on protesters and fighters held for questioning. Photo / APN
Syria has witnessed a large rise in the use and manufacture of amphetamines as fighters on both sides of its civil war use the drugs for stamina in battle.
The conflict has turned it into a major consumer and exporter of the drugs, which are said to generate hundreds of
millions of dollars in profits each year. The main stimulant in question is Captagon, the former brand name of a drug first used as an antidepressant in the West in the 1960s.
Government forces and rebel groups accuse each other of using Captagon to fight prolonged battles without sleep. The pills, which many ordinary Syrians are also increasingly turning to, sell for between $6 and $30.
Captagon is often made by amateur chemists in makeshift laboratories. Production is cheap and simple, requiring "only basic knowledge of chemistry and a few scales", according to Ramzi Haddad, a Lebanese psychiatrist.
"It gives you a kind of euphoria," he said. "You're talkative, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you're energetic."
