{"id":50225,"date":"2024-12-22T00:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T00:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/what-will-happen-to-syrias-4-5bn-drug-empire-now\/"},"modified":"2024-12-22T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T00:31:00","slug":"what-will-happen-to-syrias-4-5bn-drug-empire-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=50225","title":{"rendered":"What will happen to Syria&#8217;s \u00a34.5bn drug empire now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Videos filmed by Syrians raiding properties allegedly owned by relatives of Assad show rooms full of pills being made and packaged, hidden in fake industrial products. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Other footage shows piles of pills found in what appears to be a Syrian military airbase, set on fire by the rebels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I spent a year investigating Captagon for a BBC World Service documentary and saw how the drug became as popular among the wealthy youth of Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia as it was among the working class in countries like Jordan. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I was 19 years old, I started taking Captagon and my life started to fall apart,&#8221; Yasser, a young male addict in a rehab clinic told us in Jordan&#8217;s capital, Amman. &#8220;I started hanging out with people who take this thing. You work, you live without food, so the body is a wreck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So how will al-Sharaa and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), deal with the large number of people in Syria and around the Middle East addicted to Captagon who may suddenly find themselves without a supply?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Caroline Rose, an expert on Syrian drug trafficking at the New Lines Institute, has concerns around this. &#8220;My fear is that they will really crack down on supply and not necessarily try to do any sort of demand reduction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But there is a broader question at play too: that is, what effect will the loss of such a lucrative trade have on Syria&#8217;s economy? And as those behind it move aside, how will al-Sharaa keep at bay any other criminals waiting in the wings to replace them?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c2dxnn1406do\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Videos filmed by Syrians raiding properties allegedly owned by relatives of Assad show rooms full of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4451,1345,4452,1633,1208],"class_list":["post-50225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","tag-4-5bn","tag-drug","tag-empire","tag-happen","tag-syrias"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.0 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What will happen to Syria&#039;s \u00a34.5bn drug empire now? 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