It has been
reported that ISIS soldiers have begun using Captagon, an illegal drug
combining theophylline and amphetamine, to increase strength, alertness,
attention, etc. Captagon, or fenethylline, is an inactive combination upon
ingestion, but when the body breaks it down into theophylline and amphetamine,
the drug becomes active. Theophylline is very similar to caffeine and can
increase our ability to concentrate; it is also used to treat asthma because it
dilates the bronchi and opens up our airways. Amphetamine, the main
psychoactive ingredient, increases attention and alertness and is often used to
reduce the desire to eat or sleep. ISIS soldiers use Captagon to achieve these
effects and to also increase aggressiveness and reduce the sensation of pain.
Captagon stimulates the central nervous
system, which like amphetamines, boost our ability to concentrate, increase
physical performance and alertness, and result in an increased sense of wellbeing.
Captagon acts on the neurotransmitters dopamine and epinephrine – or adrenaline
– to cause these various effects. ISIS soldiers are likely unaware of the
addictive qualities of Captagon and might weigh its performance boosting
abilities against its perceived harm. Drugs like Captagon that act on dopamine
and the brain’s central reward pathway cause this pathway to become a closed
loop between the orbitofrontal cortex and the ventral striatum –reducing our
ability to consciously choose.
Captagon is
largely produced by countries such as Syria and is often sold on the black
market. The production and distribution of Captagon is proving to be a serious
problem; it is being abused by soldiers to reach a state of increased
attention, reduced pain perception, and amplified aggressiveness and it is giving
money back to the warring economies, which is only allowing war to drag on for
longer periods of time. Captagon is a dangerously addictive substance with
adverse side effects and its production must be stopped before soldiers begin
to abuse it worldwide.
Sources: http://www.livescience.com/52904-captagon-amphetamine-pill-explainer.html
http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2015/11/96238_space.html
This is a very interesting and scary drug, I have not heard of this before your post. It seems to be a very common abused drug in soldiers, but I wonder if students would ever give this a shot. It is known to increase increase attention, alertness, and reduce the urge to sleep. There are obvious side affects a student would not want such as increased aggression, but the overall affects seem to mostly affect ones cognition. Could this be a more intense form of adderal. However the highly addictive characteristics should be enough to scare anyone away.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is any other negative side affects that could seriously alter ones physical or mental well being.
This is extremely interesting, and I also have not heard of this until this post. I also figure that this drug mainly affects the SNS nervous system and this is why one becomes more alert and stimulated because it is in a sense in a fight or flight condition. I also wonder why this drug called Captogon is illegal. In this article it talks about how this drug makes a "super soldier". But it also says that if it created a super soldier than the U.S would be using it. It says that the soldiers taking this say that they feel spectacular, but that may be attributed to them never experiencing what other drugs feel like. They also say that as far as they now, the actuall drug being use3d has not been tested in the U.S to see what is in it. For all we know they could be using Meth as the drug. Methamphetamine has many short ter effefcts that these ISIS soldiers may be using. Meth increases the heart rate, blood pressure, and in small doses can increase alertness for a period of time. Meth also can increase the levels of dopamine in the body which may be why they say that they can not feel pain. I believe that captagon may just be another name for Meth, but because the name captagon makes the soldiers think that they are receiving some new high end drug. This is just speculation, but meth has some of the same characteristics as captagon. Let me know if you find more about this new "super drug". Because of the speculation I do not think that this should be used by students to study but I may be completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteThis is extremely interesting, and I also have not heard of this until this post. I also figure that this drug mainly affects the SNS nervous system and this is why one becomes more alert and stimulated because it is in a sense in a fight or flight condition. I also wonder why this drug called Captogon is illegal. In this article it talks about how this drug makes a "super soldier". But it also says that if it created a super soldier than the U.S would be using it. It says that the soldiers taking this say that they feel spectacular, but that may be attributed to them never experiencing what other drugs feel like. They also say that as far as they now, the actuall drug being use3d has not been tested in the U.S to see what is in it. For all we know they could be using Meth as the drug. Methamphetamine has many short ter effefcts that these ISIS soldiers may be using. Meth increases the heart rate, blood pressure, and in small doses can increase alertness for a period of time. Meth also can increase the levels of dopamine in the body which may be why they say that they can not feel pain. I believe that captagon may just be another name for Meth, but because the name captagon makes the soldiers think that they are receiving some new high end drug. This is just speculation, but meth has some of the same characteristics as captagon. Let me know if you find more about this new "super drug". Because of the speculation I do not think that this should be used by students to study but I may be completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the articles i find it fascinating that they describe captagon as a weaker amphetamine, possibly weaker than the adderall that is available legally in the United States to students with prescriptions. This seems very counterproductive if their main goal is to increase aggressive behaviors in soldiers, instead it seems as if they are trying to provide their soldiers with the ability to increase their endurance and increase the amount of hours that they are alert during the day. This could account for why they have included a medication that dilates the bronchi, which could help a solider to undertake more physically exerting training and missions without getting exhausted, which is helpful when you have a smaller army than your enemy for they can afford to replace men who are exhausted after a skirmish where as you cannot. However if they are, as Richard pointed out, simply distributing methamphetamine under the captagon brand then I would expect to see the effects that are being seen in the ISIS soldiers, including decreased pain perception and increased aggression, due to the neuro-chemical interactions of amphetamine class drugs that Tim L described. I think that the main problem with these stories is that someone mentions that one enemy or another has found a secret drug that produces 'super-soldiers' and therefore people who interact with these 'super-soldiers' are already biased and tend to report the symptoms that they believe that these drugged up soldiers should be exhibiting. I believe that the most important part of the first article that Tim L provided was the section that said that no one has actually tested what these soldiers are ingesting, which means that they could be taking a different type of drug or that the reports of drug use are falsified by groups like ISIS to strike fear into their enemies as well as the general public. A great example of this is the idea that captagon could somehow reduce the amount of pain that someone feels, when at best all it would do is distract a person from the pain that they are inflicted due the hyper-activity of the SNS that are characteristic of amphetamines, but once the drug wears off or if it is not in a high enough dose the soldier would return his/her attention to the pain as it will have not been dulled by any analgesic means. In the end the reports of 'super-soldiers' is somewhat terrifying, but it seems that if captagon is the drug that they are using then the effects might be exaggerated if not a complete product of propaganda.
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