Captagon

Main article: Drugs

2022: Lebanon and Syria are the main suppliers. Saudi Arabia is the top consumer

At the beginning of 2022, the main consumer of the drug is Saudi Arabia. Gradually, this banned substance is expanding beyond the Middle East and becoming popular in Europe and even Malaysia, where in 2021 they intercepted a record batch of 95 million tablets.

Captagon is extremely cheap and easy to manufacture. In Saudi Arabia, the pill at that time cost $14, and in Syria its price may be less than a dollar at all. The drug is in stable demand, especially in the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, where it first appeared back in the 1980s.

Due to the war in Syria and Lebanon, there are conditions for large-scale production of captagon: cheap labor, a huge "gray zone" and a general desire to earn money against the background of income sagging from economic collapse and sanctions.

The countries of the region themselves are interested in a share of the traffic of extremely profitable goods. Given the expansion of the captagon market, the amounts are getting even larger.

In the West, they like to portray the Lebanese group Hezbollah as the main beneficiary of the captagon trade. She really earns on prohibited substances, but she will not be able to become a monopoly even if she wishes.

Drug production in Lebanon is carried out by all the largest political forces. The sphere is so regulated that even after the legalization of the cultivation of medical cannabis, cartels began hunting for loners in order to prevent them from entering the market.

Hezbollah will not be able to fully independently ensure the traffic of substances even within Lebanon itself: there are enough disloyal areas in the country, where they simply will not let cargo to the port. The production and delivery of captagon outside the country would not have been possible without the help of the Lebanese authorities and big business.

In Syria, the local market is dominated by businessmen and security officials close to the ruling circles, whose mukhabarat and servicemen of the elite CAA tank division are responsible for drug transit, the Rybar channel wrote.

Through the efforts of the Western media, the role of Hezbollah in the regional drug trade is extremely exaggerated. At best, the grouping is only a link in the traffic chain of prohibited substances.

The low price and established transit routes make it an uncontested substance in the markets of the region. Therefore, in the near future it is worth waiting only for the expansion of the geography of the supply of captagon. Even in states very far from the Middle East.