Newly married and saddled with debt, Saudi Arabian security guard Faisal used to struggle to support his young family before he began taking a drug called captagon. The highly addictive amphetamine now powers his grueling work schedule, allowing him to chase overnight shifts at a private hospital with long days driving for a ride-sharing app in the capital, Riyadh — sometimes working three days nonstop.
“I finish my first job exhausted in the early hours of the morning, but I desperately need to work on the taxi app,” said the skinny 20-year-old, who asked only to be identified by his first name to avoid the stigma of drug use.
Faisal — who spends about US$40 a month on captagon — told reporters that the stimulant had helped him “double my earnings and is helping me pay off my debts.”
Photo: AFP
Captagon has been sweeping the Middle East for years, with Saudi Arabia the biggest market by far: The kingdom’s customs seized 119 million pills last year alone.
Saudi Arabian officials sometimes describe it as a party drug, but that leaves out an important demographic: working-class men like Faisal who take captagon to earn more by working longer.
“Young people and the well-off use it to get happiness ... but workers use it more in search of overtime,” said Firas al-Waziri, who is opening a treatment center for captagon addiction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second city.
On the streets of the Saudi Arabian capital, pills stamped with flowers or the Lexus logo range in price from US$6 to US$27 depending on “quality,” a dealer — who sells mainly to students and low-wage workers — told reporters.
Caroline Rose, of the US-based New Lines Institute, who has investigated the trade, said captagon’s “dual appeal as a recreational drug as well as something that enhances productivity” cut across class barriers.
Captagon was patented in Germany in the early 1960s and was first used to treat attention deficit disorder and narcolepsy. Banned in the 1980s, it has become one of the most popular illegal drugs in the Middle East, with most of the pills produced in war-ravaged Syria.
While it became notorious in the West because of its use by Islamic State fighters, it is less taboo in the Muslim states of the Persian Gulf than either cocaine or alcohol, but is no less addictive and damaging.
A Sudanese truck driver, who did not want to be named, told reporters that he could not work his long hours without the pills.
“When I have to drive for 10 hours a day, I can’t stay alert without the pills,” he said.
An Egyptian construction worker, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said he first took captagon unwittingly, when the manager at a site slipped it into the tea and coffee.
“We were working overtime, benefiting financially, finishing jobs in fewer days and benefiting the employer,” he said. “But in that time my colleagues and I became addicted.”
Saudi Arabia’s national narcotics control committee did not respond to a request for comment on the problem.
The chemical composition of many pills on the market varies wildly, Rose said.
However, Faisal said he would go on taking captagon “until I fully pay off my debts,” whatever the risks from notorious side effects including mood swings, and breathing and heartbeat irregularities.
“Yes, I work for two or three days without stopping, but I sometimes lose my focus and sometimes I need to sleep for a whole day,” he said.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS