The American Coalition for Syria Celebrates Passage of the Captagon Act

Captagon trade has netted the Assad regime billions of dollars in revenue and turned Syria into a narco-state.

WASHINGTON D.C., December 22, 2022 – The American Coalition for Syria (ACS) welcomes the signing of the Countering Assad’s Proliferation Trafficking And Garnering Of Narcotics (Captagon) Act into law by President Biden as part of the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Introduced by Rep. French Hill (R-AR) in 2021 and added to the FY 2023 NDAA in September 2022, the Captagon Act (H.R.6265/S. 3392) seeks to disrupt and dismantle the Assad regime’s elaborate and illicit trade in Captagon, an illegal, addictive amphetamine, which nets the Assad regime more money than all other Syrian exports combined. Using an elite division of the Syrian army led by his brother, Maher al-Assad, to oversee the systematic production and distribution of captagon, Bashar al-Assad has managed to spread the banned drug far beyond Syria’s borders to other countries in the Middle East and Europe.

“Countering the captagon trade has been a key policy priority of our constituent member organizations, and we are glad to wrap up 2022 with this promising news. It is a great shame that under Assad, Syria has been transformed from the birthplace of the alphabet and cradle of civilization into the newest narco-state. We are grateful to Rep. Hill for his long standing friendship with the free Syrian people and his leadership on the Captagon act,” said Mirna Barq, ACS spokesperson.

“Our staff worked directly with Congressional partners, constituents and the media to ensure that the Captagon Act was added to the NDAA this year. We are thankful for all of the Syrian American organizations that advocated for this bill. Although today is a day of celebration, our policy and grassroots advocacy teams are already working with experts and our grassroots and grasstops supporters to see the Captagon Act implemented in full force in 2023,” said Dr. Mahmoud Barazi, president of ACS.