King Captagon

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the New Lines Institute's Caroline Rose. The trade in the illicit synthetic drug Captagon continues to boom and much of it is run by Syria's Assad family. The Assads have built up a manufacturing and distribution network that brings them more than $2 billion a year. Despite Bashar al-Assad's promise to curtail the trade in return for being allowed back into the fold of the Arab states, captagon remains king as the Middle East's drug of choice. Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.