In effort to strike Syria, US passes captagon sanctions bill

The US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday the “Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act” with a bipartisan vote of 410-13, AFP reports.

The new law allows for new and direct sanctions to be imposed on individuals and entities affiliated with the Assad regime who produce and traffic captagon.

“We need to have specific sanctions directly targeting individuals and networks associated with the trade of captagon, which is exactly why it is crucial that my bill, the Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act, passed the House Floor today,” US Representative French Hill said on Tuesday.

Over the past few years, the Middle East has seen a drastic increase in the trafficking of drugs orchestrated by the Assad regime and its affiliated figures and militias, with millions of pills being smuggled into Gulf states, North Africa and Europe.

Banned in most countries, and is used as an alternative to amphetamine and methamphetamine. Syria is considered to be the world’s largest producer of the drug, accounting for about 80 per cent of the global supply. The funds are said to be used to fund the regime at a time when it has been harshly hit  by sanctions.

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