Biden signs act to combat captagon trade in Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – U.S. President Joe Biden signed on Wednesday the captagon bill into law to target the production and the trafficking of the drug in Syria.
U.S. Representative for Arkansas, French Hill, who introduced the bill to Congress, stated on X (previously Twitter) the Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act was signed into law.
Biden signed the Act as part of a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It enables imposing new and direct sanctions against individuals, entities and armed groups, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, affiliated with the “Assad regime” who produce and traffic captagon.
“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad exploits his dangerous drug captagon to generate billions in illicit funding. My bill combats this by directly targeting and sanctioning those involved with the production and trafficking of captagon,” Hill said.
On April 16, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Act, also known as “Captagon II,” with a bipartisan vote of 410-13. It was introduced in July 2023 by Hill, and Florida’s Rep. Jared Moskowitz.
Syria became a key production and smuggling center for captagon since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Captagon is a cheaply produced addictive drug similar to amphetamines.