Monday, April 3, 2017

A Drug Comment

One day, you come to note some colleague that you work with....seeming to have a burst of energy.  He tells you of an entire weekend where he was mostly up and partying with friends and associates.  Sleep?  Almost non-existent, and he's almost proud of that.  You kinda note by the end of Monday (his 3rd day in this trail of behavior)....that he's more open to suggestions.  He also seems to have no fatigue or lack of energy.  Somewhere by Tuesday afternoon....he's now coming down from this odd perception....tired and almost burned out.  A day or two later, he's back at the Monday level....highly pepped up and full of energy, but with no sleep.  His aggravation level is now a full-time job for the rest of the office to handle.

In a way, you notice that he's got some euphoria at work....a level that you wouldn't notice normally.

The likely cause?  Captagon....or Fenethylline.  It's a drug that was developed a German company (some believe after the war, but I would suggest that it was originally from the 1940-era).  It was legal throughout the world, until the 1960s when the US banned it.  A decade later....it was banned in most of the civilized world.

What drove the banning?  It was a drug which easy to become addicted to.  It drove people to avoid sleep and kept alert behavior at an acceptable level for two to three days.  Oddly, you lost weight with the drug.  Along the way, you did stupid things, displayed an aggressive attitude, and could have been violent.

Up until five years ago, no one had heard much from Captagon or Fenethylline.  Then, the war starts up in Syria/Iraq with ISIS.  Almost overnight....the drug appeared and was readily used by members of the ISIS effort.

On the normal market, the drug sells now between $5 and $15 per pill.  In Syria, large amounts of the drug are created, and issued out.  Across the Middle East, it's become a party-like drug now.  Some guy will have some event coming up with a party going on for two days straight....so he gets a batch of the pills and issues them out as folks arrive.  Everyone talks about the 'big-party' and how it kept going....and the legend of the Captagon pill starts to spin out.

Captagon in Europe now?  Yes.  Evidence shows it with the Paris terror guys from 2016, and I suspect that few others within Belgium and Germany also used the pill.

The thing is.....it's likely to progress with more people discovering the pill and it's affect.  At $5 for a two to three day 'high'.....it's cheap enough for the middle-class or lower-class to afford.

Some journalists have discussed the idea that ISIS-cartels will develop as the war winds up in the region, and find themselves a new way to survive on and finance their 'gang'.

So don't be shocked if you see more and more people hyped up and acting weird.

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