‘Poor Man’s Cocaine’ May Threaten Europe Next

Addiction to captagon, an amphetamine-type pill nicknamed the “poor man’s cocaine,” has been a serious problem in Gulf Arab states — especially among Saudi Arabia’s youth, with one Saudi commentator speaking recently of a “devastating amount of poison” being brought to the kingdom.

Now, there’s mounting concern among policymakers in Europe that producers and traffickers of captagon, based mainly in Syria and Lebanon and allegedly tied to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his Lebanese ally Hezbollah, are trying to tap new markets on the continent in response to shifting politics and a crackdown in the region. Both Assad and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, which restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in March.