Somewhat off topic (because the nature and direction of trade is main story here) but this illegal drug doesn't sound particularly terrible.

Talk of the destruction of youth seems hyperbolic to put it mildly, though Islamic orthodoxy frowns upon intoxicants of any kind, not to mention loud music and dancing. The anxiety seems to be rooted in fears of cultural rather than medical harm. Of course, one might say the same of proscriptive drug policies everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenethylline

The drug in question seems to be in the meth family so I'd be hesitant to say that usage in "high enough to get addicted" quantities is not harmful since it probably has negative side effects similar to meth at that point. At small doses it's probably similar to adderall which is pretty harmless.

The article doesn't make clear what dosage the average recreational user is taking.

As described it sounds more like MDMA (aka ecstasy or molly, and also part of the amphetamine family); while not harm free it's not nearly as strongly associated with abuse or negative health outcomes as methamphetamine. We have to guess about dose, but I'd say most party drug consumers aim to balance the pleasure of dancing all night with the ability to do so on an ongoing basis.

A french report debunked that contemporary captagon actually contains any Fenethylline, as most of the production capabilities have been dismantled in the 90s following its prohibition. Captagon varies in content but is most often plain amphetamine.

https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/07/27/captagon-u...

>IN THE DUNES north of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, the sun sets and the party begins. Girls discard their abayas, the black shrouds that envelop them in public, and begin jiving to techno music with boys. A few swig from bottles, but most prefer Captagon pills, nowadays the Gulf’s favourite drug, at $25 a pop. They call it Abu Hilalain (Father of Two Half-moons), after the two letter “c”s (for Captagon) embossed on the pills. Part of the amphetamine family, it can have a similar effect to Viagra—and conquers sleep. “With one pill,” says a raver, “we can dance all weekend.”

Can anyone that is on the ground please confirm this. Party scene in KSA outside of the state inside the state that is Aramco seems like fiction.

There are thousands of princes who each get millions of dollars per year stipend with absolutely no responsibility. So yes, there absolutely is a huge party scene in the kingdom, so long as you aren't poor or conservative/religious.

> Part of the amphetamine family, it can have a similar effect to Viagra

I don’t think the writer knows what viagra does.

The drug is a vasodilator, whereas most amphetamines are vasoconstrictors.

Hence the "unsafe drop in blood pressure" disclaimer.

I second the request for confirmation. It does sound like fiction to me too.

I’d have believed it if it were indoors, but out in the open seems excessively risky. At least that’s how it works in other “dry” countries.

Though I dunno the living conditions of wealthy saudis outside of aramco compounds (or do the wealthy live there too?)

Any M5M piece about Syria is automatically suspect. Recall how sure they were about Douma chlorine attacks, etc. Perhaps even worse than reporting fake crap are the true, relevant facts they leave out. TFA doesn't even mention the nation (USA) that currently occupies the resource-rich eastern third of the nation. Even the linked "War is Bad" article displays a map that pretends it's actually "Kurds" who are currently in control of all the oil and grain that Syria produces. These clowns weren't mad at Trump for the occupation, since Biden has continued it. They were just mad that Trump talked about the occupation.

Go, and look what you get on Tinder, say somewhere in Jeddah...

I won’t, but what?

I believe this was always the plan, from the US perspective?

https://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/

No, the US did not plan to start a civil war which left the Syrian regime in place while destabilizing their own allies. The US has been involved in all of this, of course, but the Syrian civil war is largely a result of the a series of 2011 uprisings that started by accident.

Not by accident - one of the first major climate change conflicts - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150302-sy...

Not the best source but lack of resources (water) due to shifting climate patterns is one of the stronger roots of the civil war.

Hm. No mention of the

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Anatolia_Project

?

Sloppy...

I mean, who could have thought a few large dams lead to drought downstream? That would be extreme!

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrology#/media/File:NASA's_G...

They underestimated Syria and Assad leadership, they hoped they could take over the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syri...

Nailed it. The US is only concerned with imperialism and maintaining a stranglehold in the region. Syria was meant to be Libya Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, but it was just a royal mess from the beginning.

Sure. These poor revolutionaries and their billions of $$ of weapons.

Well, this seems an entirely fair point. Starting a civil war is not the same as toppling a government.

From my perspective, the difference is irrelevant. The broader plan seems to have been to throw the Middle East into chaos by upending every government of consequence in the region -- except Israel.

Did the US government succeed in the broader plan? Perhaps mostly? As a US citizen, it sure doesn't feel like a win, or even remotely the correct course of action.

Generally speaking, the US prefers stability over chaos, even among its enemies.

Plans with respect to every country have changed over time and author, but I think it's safe to say that many in the US had a vision of the middle east's various leaders being replaced quickly and 'cleanly' by more US-friendly alternatives, hopefully supported by the people who they rule over. In many cases we did things, overtly or covertly, to encourage that.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume some hidden master plan to cause chaos. It is however, valid to question what stupid choices we made to get to this point, and if they looked just as stupid at the time.

The whole Syria thing - what was the US end goal? I mean, seriously - even in best case? You've got a country where women are educated, the economy sort of works etc. A bunch of guys with guns takes over and....

Russia is the end goal. Syria and Lebanon (through Huzballah) are puppet states for the Russian regime. They are clearly, also, very important; otherwise, Russia would not have intervened militarily (directly) in the Syrian war.

Huh? Obama tried to stay clear of Syria. The damage was done by US in a round about way, the second Iraqi war and it's aftermath which left a huge power vaccum in the region, and killing many US troops and Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Which is exactly why Obama didn't want to get the US stuck in there.

Russia and Iran stepped in to enlarge their hegemony, and they put the Assad regime back in power.

So kindly blame Russia and Iran for this.

> Obama tried to stay clear of Syria.

How does the supporting 'moderate rebels' figure into Obama's strategy of de-escalation in Syria?

But seriously - where did all the weapons -> anti-tank missiles etc pop up from? You had a bunch of protestors -> all of a sudden armed to the teeth...

This is Russia and Iran? Syria was already close to Russia and Iran economically / etc. Why would russia and iran arm the protestors?

The US is far far away. The US isn't (that) aligned with the idea of a muslim / islamic state / caliphate etc.

Again - be very interesting to trace where all these weapons popped up. I mean this was Russia arming them?

To install a US puppet dictator. They don't care about the people.

Which dictator is that?

ISIS.

So, the puppet dictator that the US wanted to install in Syria was... ISIS?

USA is not a monolith. I didn't want that. However, my government took many steps that caused that event.

ISIS only existed in the first place because USA invaded neighboring Iraq under false pretense and deposed Iraq's government. ISIS was strengthened in Syria by USA's attacks (both through sanctions [0] and through other violent means) on Syria's government. ISIS was armed by USA parachuting thousands of weapons into the conflict zone. [1] Perhaps the people making these decisions are morons who can't predict the obvious results of their own actions. I suspect they are not that sort of morons.

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/16/is-syrias-sanctions...

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/364917-study-shows-us-wea...

Okay, the Kurds who control the Iraq/Turkey border, but aren't the PKK, trading through the mountains??

Also I want to know if the drugs in the photo were hidden in the pomegranates

Makes me wonder why they would choose such an obscure substance

Amphetamine tablets are extremely popular in Asia

Amphetamine sure, but captagon is a more complicated molecule without any real extra benefit. Théophyllines are meh unless you’re nearly dying of lung disease.

However, Wikipedia reports:

“ Many of these counterfeit "Captagon" tablets actually contain other amphetamine derivatives that are easier to produce, but are pressed and stamped to look like Captagon pills.”

which makes a lot more sense if the chemistry is being done in Syria.

Yes but Captagon is not. How did it become so popular in the middle east and north africa?

>Yes but Captagon is not. How did it become so popular in the middle east and north africa?

I remember reports about it being popular with IS and Al Qaeda fighters as a combat drug: reduced anxiety, increased stamina and the forming addiction can be used as a tool to keep the fighters in line.

I am going to guess and say they are probably pressed amphetamine made to look like Captagon

Availability is usually the answer. Lots of overland routes available where it’s popular/legal/cheap within the Middle East.

Though the APIs probably originate from China so you’d think more “western” choices would be made.

Presumably the party culture had been adopted from EU/USA.

> Though the APIs probably originate from China

What does API stand for in this context?

It stands for active pharmaceutical ingredient. Meaning the actual drug in a complete pill. Many pills are mostly non-active ingredients because a pill containing e.g. 10 mg of API would be inconveniently tiny if the pill itself was only 10 mg.

Obscure? Isn't this the drug that ISIL feeds its "soldiers"?

It's starting to become heavily political, I agree.

Seeing debates about Trump/Pelosi on here is very saddening. Anecdotally it seems that discourse on politics here has become much less of seeking understanding and much more snarky comments and evangelizing beliefs.

It's interesting to see that the only account complaining about HN politics was created 20 minutes ago. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Yes, I think more and more we are seeing that. The post was flagged, but it's worth a discussion.

Anecdotally, under previous names, I've noticed that before on HN thoughtful conversations could happen when it came to politics. I'm finding less and less of that to be true, and more posts are becoming flagged/flame wars.

Still, labeling and name calling is rather the exception and as you too observed, gets flagged quickly as such. My point was that some accounts seem to be created for the sole goal of name calling. Oh well, I'm happy they're only a few.

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This was a desired outcome of the Iraq War: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2935969.stm

> There are some in the Bush administration who hope that the fall of Saddam Hussein will be followed by a "democratic domino" effect across the Middle East.

> ...Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary... has said that Iraq as the "first Arab democracy" would "cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran, across the whole Arab world."

> ...specifically mentioned Syria, which according to CIA reports to Congress has a chemical weapons programme. Although not formally a member of the "axis", Syria is, in the eyes of officials like John Bolton, very much a candidate.

The Iraq war had more to do with Iran..

An fantastically dumb statement. USA is the biggest backer of Saudi Arabia — a country which is basically a Middle-Eastern North Korea.

Here is the context you are missing: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/08/the-larouchie-de...

Classicists and grand strategists tend to view history in cyclic terms, with long-running conflicts echoing through the centuries.

I would never accuse US foreign policy of being ideologically coherent. I'm just pointing out that this was an explicit goal of the US invasion of Iraq, direct from the horses' mouths. Are you calling me dumb for stating that, or them dumb for being incoherent?

If you're going to blame the US, might want to reach back a bit further too.

We've been "intervening" in the Middle East long before Obama.

Just to consider the mayhem that ill-thought wars have caused in the ME, just so americans at home can have petty arguments like that

Did someone say Mosaddegh?!

Syria definitely didn’t have any problems before Obama. Al-Assad and his father were totally peaceful, definitely weren’t razing towns for decades.

The half-assed intervention leading to a protracted conflict in Syria has arguably been much more damaging to American interests than Iraq was, not to mention screwing up Syria a lot worse than it already would have been. Unless there was some pretty crazy stuff going on beyond the public eye to justify it, it's a strong candidate for America's biggest foreign policy blunder of the century (so far). Actually, I'm struggling to think of something definitely worse since Vietnam, in those terms. It's been (very) low-cost in American lives & money compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, but just horrible for US interests and for general international stability, in the Middle East and Europe, especially, and it hasn't even done Syria any favors to offset that.

Iraq and Afghanistan—either one, on its own—surely did more direct harm to America itself, however, but in sheer foreign-policy terms? Our actions in Syria look really bad from that perspective.

I write that as an Obama voter, and Iraq war protester.

This is another neo-liberal talking point. Its like Saying Libya under Gaddafi was horrible too blah blah. You know how it is like right now?

It's like saying China should have dropped freedom bombs on US during trump leadership so Americans can be saved.

Somebody get that man a peace prize!

Syria has basically tacitely legalized both the production and the consumption of drugs. Drug export is also it's biggest income.

More countries should follow their example.

Imagine how much tax dollars would be gained if all drugs were legalized in US and let's say 20% of it's population started to regularly use them.

Better yet, let's export it to unwilling countries to balance our trade deficit!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

> Imagine how much tax dollars would be gained if all drugs were legalized in US and let's say 20% of it's population started to regularly use them.

...What? Is this a serious take? You think widespread recreational hard drug usage would increase tax revenue and not have any other negative externalities? Like... dead people don't pay taxes.

Question for you: What percentage of the US population do you think regularly (say, once a month or more) consumes hard drugs? Include prescription painkillers and amphetamines in this count, even if they are prescribed by doctors.

I'll bet it's not too far away from 20% already.

>Imagine how much tax dollars would be gained if all drugs were legalized in US and let's say 20% of it's population started to regularly use them.

Maybe... Or, the same criminal underworld that controlled the drug trade still does, but now operates with more impunity (and still doesn't pay taxes.)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Illegal-pot-invades-Cali...

I want to remind to our American readers of another narco-state flooding USA with fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids, about which the mighty country of America can't do anything about, but moan, complain, and keep calling for "security summits" for their amusement.

The Taliban culled opium production in Afghanistan shortly before the US led invasion, after which production miraculously recovered and increased [1].

But sure, it's definitely "China", which has extreme cultural trauma around opiates (and zero tolerance policy toward them) and analogs since the Opium Wars devastated the entire country, that is the primary problem. No blame for the pharmaceutical companies and pill pushers who rely on Golden Crescent/Triangle opium exports!

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444.amp

Canada? Mexico? China?

How dare you! Now you’re just being xenophobic! Racist!

/sarcasm

(The answer is China.)

I thought the sacklers were american