Policy Brief

Drug Smuggling in Syria: Involvement by Assad Regime and Complication on Regional Countries

Cases of detection of huge shipments of Captagon pills inside commercial goods coming from Syria are increasing in a number of regional and Arab countries, and the efforts of some Arab countries to combat drug smuggling are increasing in conjunction with a draft resolution in Congress calling on the US administration to make more efforts to combat the manufacture and smuggling of drugs coming from Syria and Lebanon. While there is increasing talk about Arab countries normalising with the Assad regime, the drugs coming from Syria threaten to cause more social rifts in Arab countries that are already suffering from social and economic crises.