No Quick Fixes for the Middle East’s Captagon Crisis

The security, health, and geopolitical impacts of captagon’s proliferation in the Middle East have jolted many countries around the world into action. Both consumer and transit countries in the region are enhancing their interdiction capacities and considering the normalization of relations with the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which controls areas where most captagon originates. The Biden administration has announced an interagency counter-captagon strategy and has imposed joint sanctions with the United Kingdom and European Union on Syrian and Lebanese actors involved in the industry. Additionally, Captagon has been included in the US-led Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats. In this piece, I argue that these responses are myopic, partial, and occasionally misguided. Instead, I advocate for comprehensive, long-term, and smart policy solutions.