The Drug Menace Across Middle East

As the former President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his close associates fled to Russia, the huge villas in the vicinity of the Syrian capital starkly exposed the evils of their narco regime. Over the past 10 years, Assad’s brother and his deputy seized citizens’ happy abodes and transformed them into illegal factories producing drugs that could claim victims more than war! The regime utilized the Syrian army and intelligence alongside the terrorist groups to spread the illicit drug business across the Middle East and beyond. Over these years, the heavily sanctioned, war-torn country had become reliant upon this illegal trade so much that the drug revenues were estimated to be around 65 per cent of its GDP.

According to the US and UK, the Syrian narcotic trade is the highest in the world, thrice the combined trade of Mexican drug cartels. The Assad family apparently utilized this drug money to acquire luxurious mansions and establish safe havens abroad. As time passed, Syria’s lab-made drug, Captagon, gained notoriety as the Drug of Jihad.

The illicit drug enabled the insurgents to stave off their sleep and hunger and soon became the financial backbone of terrorism in the Middle East. A large number of affluent, idle youth and high-profit margins made the drug trade attractive for the traffickers, ultimately enabling the Assad regime to gain leverage over the oil-rich Middle East. With this, Assad’s cooperation to counter narcoterrorism in the region became inevitable. And so, in mid-2023, Syria, once debarred by Arabs, was readmitted to the Arab League. But, within a year into the Arab League, Syrian drug smuggling surged nearly threefold. And then there the Assad regime fell, one of the main reasons being its full-blown drug trade.

Now, the new Syrian regime with a rebellious past, has vowed to “purify the country”, and is said to have torched millions of captagon pills already. However, seizing and disposing of drugs won’t be enough to combat the drug threat as long as the vast network of underground tunnels, drug labs, and greenhouses spreading narcoterrorism across the Middle East continues to exist.

Despite all these operations, the drug menace would still loom over the globe as the world’s biggest drug supplier, Afghanistan, seemingly has shifted its focus from opium to more profitable synthetic drugs. The Afghan-origin seizures of lab-made drugs have been reported not just from the Middle East but also from places as far away as Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa! The media, however, applauded the Afghan’s 2022 opium cultivation ban as “Taliban’s War on Drugs”, while neglecting the reality that the Taliban is targeting only opium farming and not the stocks of opioids or their trafficking.

It is to be noted that despite the imposed ban surging the opium value, no real effect was observed in the opium market even by 2024, as conflict-ridden Myanmar emerged as a new opium producer. The ongoing crisis in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Myanmar serves as a constant reminder that narcoterrorism thrives in Countries with despotic regimes and hollow democracies, or those amid coup chaos.

The geographical proximity to these regions makes India vulnerable to the rising drug menace. The well-established drug network of illicit sea routes, overland routes, and porous borders are throttling India, especially her border states where the drugs are smuggled in not just by sea or land but through drones and doves carrying backpacks! According to a media report, in August of this year, traffickers were given synthetic drugs to be distributed free of cost in India’s Punjab region to divert addicts from opium addiction to a profitable lab-made alternative! Last month, on November 25th, Indian coast guards seized synthetic drugs worth $4.2 billion (approx Rs. 36,000 cr) from the Myanmarese fishing boat in Andaman waters.

The billions of revenue generated by the narcotic industry do not stimulate the economic growth of the country. Instead, the narco-income is parked in foreign assets or non-productive sectors such as real estate and entertainment and spent on weapons and conspicuous consumption. The established drug networks pave the way for financial scams and many other illicit trades like human trafficking, natural resources smuggling and wildlife trafficking. These illegal profits fuel corruption within the government, foster criminal activity, and contribute to insurgent movements, ultimately leading to civil war. The Syrian drug economy and the fall of the Assad regime are stark illustrations of the same.

These drugs are misleadingly marketed as penicillin for the soul. Portrayals of drug use in music videos and films, too, have become a universal cause of concern as naive viewers are often led to believe that drug use is a symbol of liberalism and high social status or that drug addiction has easy fixes. The narcotics trade has a profound destabilizing effect on civil society, as it aims to perpetuate addiction by various means. Evil drug dealers mislead the youths and profit from their addiction and suffering. The students are lured to these pills to stay awake for late-night studies; the labourers resort to them for long-lasting stamina. The chocolates, crisps, and cartoon-shaped goodies laced with drugs pose a significant risk as they are mainly intended for kids. In short, drugs destroy the main props and pillars of society.

Considering the drug menace, many countries have placed a high priority on combating narcotics abuse and trafficking. Currently, more than 30 countries have imposed the death penalty for drug smuggling. Despite stringent laws, financial sanctions, and real-time international cooperation, illicit drug trafficking and abuse continue to rise globally.

The record drug seizures at source, transit, and destination levels have a minimal impact on the drug market as the drug barons can easily absorb these immense losses as the cost of doing business! The strategy that has seldom been explored by nations to combat the illicit drug trade is nothing but drastically reducing the demand for narcotics. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be ample supply. The only way to curtail the demand for drugs is through substantial investment in comprehensive education, awareness campaigns, and rehabilitation programs.

(The author is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)