
Captagon, the drug fueling Syria’s war - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/19/the-tiny-pill-fueling-syrias-war-and-turning-fighters-into-super-human-soldiers
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dismal2
Hmm, wonder if this has anything at all to do with the Saudi Prince Reportedly
Caught With Two Tons of Speed on Private Plane in Beirut...

([https://news.vice.com/article/saudi-prince-reportedly-
caught...](https://news.vice.com/article/saudi-prince-reportedly-caught-with-
two-tons-of-speed-on-private-plane-in-beirut))

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xlm1717
He's a freakin prince, does he need to numb himself that much??

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gotchange
He's a dealer not a user.

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JamesBarney
A little bit of context for this story. We sometimes give our fighter pilots
an identical drug[0]. Sometimes we give our children an identical drug. We
call it adderall or amphetamine. This article sounds to me very much like a
scare piece.

But I guess "Syrian rebels and government soldiers accuse each other of using
adderall" is not catchy enough :).

[0] Technically Captagon also has theophylline which is a methylxanthine
similar to caffeine that is in chocolate. Also we use just one isomer of
amphetamine as opposed to both. It's not really a mixture of the two so much
as a pro drug.

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aburan28
Eh, sort of. Captagon is a produg to amphetamine and theophylline and is
controlled level 1 meaning it's completely illegal in the United States. It is
rampant in Saudi Arabia

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JamesBarney
:) I had a feeling someone on HN might come by and correct me, that's why I
made sure my post included a disclaimer at the end of my post pro-drug and
addition of theophylline.

But I am curious what you think prodrug-vs-drug, addition of theophylline, and
scheduling adds to the context of the story? To me it didn't seem especially
important, but I only read up on Captagon because of the story.

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goatforce5
Wikipedia says about half of US pilots involved in the Gulf War were taking
government-issue amphetamines:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substituted_amphetamines#Military_use)

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aburan28
Now they take Modafinil instead

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tosseraccount
The Germans in WWII were supposedly speed freaks too ...
[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nazis%20on%20spe...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nazis%20on%20speed)

I guess painting the enemy as drugged up war criminals makes it easier to
fight them ... however much truth there is in it.

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dpeterson
Wasn't this the plot of Jacob's Ladder? "the Ladder", a drug that massively
increased aggression, taking people straight to their most primal urges.

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spot
great movie. "the ladder" was more like a psychedelic though.

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tosseraccount
[http://mediaroots.org/bz/](http://mediaroots.org/bz/) When the movie Jacob’s
Ladder came out in 1990, many people were probably not aware that it was
loosely based on 1968 military experiments conducted in lab and field
exercises at the Edgewood Arsenal proving ground in Maryland. Even though
Jacob’s Ladder ends with a brief description of 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ)
and its effects, Adrian Lyne, the film’s director, has denied the powerful and
dangerous hallucinogenic compound was ever used on human test subjects.
However, there is evidence to suggest otherwise. .... On Erowid.org’s Datura
‘effects’ section, they list delirium capable of bringing about auditory,
visual, and tactile hallucinations indistinguishable from reality. This waking
dream-like state can lead to unconscious violent behavior much like a drunken
‘black-out.’ It’s also reported uncommonly large doses can cause
hallucinations lasting for two to three days. This mirrors available data
regarding the duration of BZ’s effects.

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NickHaflinger
The Washington Post quoting the Voice of America. Who will save us all from
these Drug crazed cyber terrorists :)

I though the war was caused by a decision taken in Washington to arm the
'rebels' in order to overthrow Assad.

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gotchange
Another reason to be very cautious with all the calls to legalize drugs
because drugs can be very lethal not only to the user but to the society as a
whole. By the way, it's reported that the Paris perpetrators were allegedly
drugged to the bone while committing their crimes but I can't seem to find now
a source where I read it.

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jacquesm
I don't think that once you've crossed the bridges that they'd already crossed
the legality or illegality of some substance would bother them much.

