Captagon - Our secret weapon against IS

So our friends down in the Caliphate love themselves some speed....or more accurately.
Fenethylline

Separate investigations by the news agency Reuters and Time magazine have found that the growing trade in Syrian-made Captagon – an amphetamine widely consumed in the Middle East but almost unknown elsewhere – generated revenues of millions of dollars inside the country last year, some of which was almost certainly used to fund weapons, while combatants on both sides are reportedly turning to the stimulant to help them keep fighting.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Syria has long been a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon and destined for the wealthy Gulf states. But the breakdown of law and order, collapse of the country's infrastructure and proliferation of armed groups have now turned it into a major producer, Reuters says. Production in Lebanon's Bekaa valley – a traditional centre for the drug – fell 90% last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria.

What is this wild party drug that's got all the killers going crazy?

Captagon allows soldiers to fight longer hours without fatigue. It doesn’t give the same level of rush or euphoria or mania that straight amphetamine would, but it allows soldiers to function for extended periods of time on little sleep and without significant decreases in alertness or performance. Eventually these soldiers are going to burn out, but it allows them to keep fighting, and potentially even to stay alive.

Sound eerily familiar to another bunch of goofballs trying to make the world their own?
The links stronger then you think.

Captagon was originally designed by Degussa AG, a German pharmaceutical company infamous for being the inventors of Zyklon B, used to gas people during the Holocaust. Captagon was invented in 1961 as an alternative to straight Amphetamine to treat ADHD, to work as an antidepressant, and to treat narcolepsy.

But whereever might they procure such a thing now? After all, they be evil terrorists!

Well as it just so happens Syria also spent a good deal of time making black market pharmaceuticals as well as chemical weapons.

“It comes from Syria. Most of the Captagon production is there, according to our information,” he said.

Official figures show Lebanon seized more than 12.3 million Captagon pills in 2013. Chamseddine said most of that came from a few large busts in the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria. One seizure of 5.3 million pills implicated a Syrian family that he said has been smuggling drugs for 10 years.

The Lebanese trader said the main players in Lebanon’s Captagon trade are established families in the Bekaa who started off smuggling hashish and coc aine decades ago. They either produce the pills themselves or provide the materials and equipment to partners inside Syria and then help smuggle the pills out of the country, he said.

The drug is cheap and simple to produce, using ingredients that are easy and often legal to obtain, yet sells for up to $20 a tablet. A Lebanese psychiatrist, Ramzi Haddad, said that Captagon had "the typical effects of a stimulant", producing "a kind of euphoria. You're talkative, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you're energetic."

Those effects explain why fighters from most of the warring parties in the conflict – with the exception of al Qaida-linked groups, which mostly hold to a strict interpretation of Islamic law – are now said to be making extensive use of Captagon, often on night missions or during particularly gruelling battles. But doctors and psychiatrists say use of the drug is also becoming widespread among Syria's increasingly desperate civilian population.

But Thorne, how does this help us? Simple.
We don't need boots on the ground, we don't need drones or high powered missiles to defeat IS.
We just need a few "killer" batches of Fenethylline. Airdrop it in, let em eat, sleep and die.

Sources:
Guardian
Nootropics

a reply to: Thorneblood

If these reports are true, it would explain a lot. They have used blitzkrieg techniques to occupy a large area without making any attempt to set up a functional occupation. They commit atrocities with no concern of how such acts will affect public opinion. I suppose the good news is that IS may eventually just burn itself out.

a reply to: DJW001

Quite the opposite. The drug addiction ensures more fighters, not less.
After you have had your first bloody sadistic orgy, you don't stop.

originally posted by: Thorneblood
a reply to: DJW001

Quite the opposite. The drug addiction ensures more fighters, not less.
After you have had your first bloody sadistic orgy, you don't stop.

You also forget to eat, lose body mass, strength and judgement. Eventually you just curl up and die. Visit a bad neighborhood sometime.

a reply to: DJW001

Oh gee whiz Mister, is it really that bad?
Please, new information.

originally posted by: Thorneblood
a reply to: DJW001

Oh gee whiz Mister, is it really that bad?
Please, new information.

Are you actually trying to kill your own thread? If you want, I can start posting so many links to the effects of chronic amphetamine use that it will stop being about whether or not IS fighters are actually using them. I assume you are of the opinion that they are, and it is good for them.

a reply to: Thorneblood

There is a darker side to this and that is will taking this drug be used as an acceptable defence against the charges people returning to Western countries face for the rape, murder and other abuses they have carried out?

I hope not but I wouldn't trust defence lawyers acting for these people not to try it in order to line their pockets.

There is the possibility of a very dangerous precident involved here that we don't want because if so, it will allow this kind of act to carry on against whoever they hate whenever they wish with a veery good excuse for their behaviour.

a reply to: Shiloh7

No-one has ever successfully used drugs as a defense against criminal charges.

a reply to: DJW001

The only thing these fighters are trying to do is set up a functional occupation.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Emerald53

Your link doesn't work.

Edit to add: Now it does. What sort of structure does the administration have? How are public works organized? What currency do merchants use?

a reply to: DJW001

Watch the whole video, It might be the 3rd episode which shows they have a great society with low crime rates functioning school systems high community morale the list goes on. I'd prefer to live in the State they're committing genocide to create over USA which was founded on equal atrocities in the name of the same God.

originally posted by: Emerald53
a reply to: DJW001

Watch the whole video, It might be the 3rd episode which shows they have a great society with low crime rates functioning school systems high community morale the list goes on. I'd prefer to live in the State they're committing genocide to create over USA which was founded on equal atrocities in the name of the same God.

By all means, move there and have fun gutting children like fish.

a reply to: DJW001

............

If you feel it is necessary to post the information that you have then please, by all means, post it.

I am, however, quite confused. When I openly stated that the best way to deal with the IS is to supply them with a highly toxic version of this drug, something that they would willingly take, was I unclear on them dying horribly as a result?

a reply to: Thorneblood

Your suggestion that they be given tainted drugs is not only unethical, it is unnecessary.

Reports coming from Kurdish fighters during the battle for Kobane/Kobani seem to support the OP.

“I don’t know where they were all coming from, but once they were killed, more Isis would come,” Mahmoud said through a translator as he walked from Kobani to a nearby town in south Turkey where his wife and five children were living as refugees. The 50-year-old said he believed the Isis militants were using hard drugs because of their confident demeanour.

You just said the civilian population is using it in increasing numbers as well. That means deliberately tainting batches of the drug would be tantamount to deliberatsly targeting civilians.

I, for one, would prosecute us for it.

a reply to: Thorneblood

a reply to: Thorneblood

I know Captagon. It was used here in Germany by Prostitutes and Professional-Sportsman.
For obvious reason.
Nowadays its unknown to most people.
it was from 1961 until 2010 availlable here with a special prescription.
In WWII my father also used to take "Pervitin", its methamphetamin they gave to the german soldiers.
Back then (1942) he was at the frontlines in Southrussia. I remember once he talked about these
pills they used to take like smarties every day. A lot soldiers also went paranoid from this stuff.
I think "Speed" has always been present in wars the last 50-70 years

a reply to: D0MiNAT0R 1OOO

There's a handful of them still now.

I've read about US pilots using something called "Go pills" and them leading to some pretty bummer complications.

I know of ripper fuel too (think that's the name) that is a favorite among some of the infantry guys too. Talked to a friend who was in Afghanistan who said "it was the #%]# it kept me from ever being out of the battle" I'm not exactly sure what ripper fuel is? Probably a workout pre burn or something?

Even (especially?) in a warzone, the spice must flow... I remember watching a documentary showing how after Katrina, people were still able to get their drugs in the wasteland "N'awlins" was at the time. It's fascinating in its own way.

OPs plan would not work except to kill the few guys designated to "test" the batch. They would not just hand it out to everyone without knowing its effects. Maybe a slow working poison would be effective. But still not a good idea for previously stated reasons.

originally posted by: Emerald53
a reply to: DJW001

Watch the whole video, It might be the 3rd episode which shows they have a great society with low crime rates functioning school systems high community morale the list goes on. I'd prefer to live in the State they're committing genocide to create over USA which was founded on equal atrocities in the name of the same God.

Wow, espousing the virtues of Islamic State right here on ATS, may I ask when were you brainwashed and did your imam promise you all those virgins?