The dark legacy of Tel Aviv's newest party pill

In the dim glow of Tel Aviv’s pulsing nightclubs, a new player has slipped into the mix. It’s called Captagon, a powerful amphetamine with a dark pedigree, and it’s no stranger to Israel’s security forces. For years, they’ve intercepted it at border crossings, bound for Gaza.

But most of us had never heard of it until Hamas' October 7th massacre, when Captagon fueled Hamas operatives, including the edeadly Nukhba unit.

Now, it’s turning up somehwere unexpected: the hands of oblivious ravers, rebranded as “MMC” and peddled as just another party drug.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. This isn’t your typical club fare. Known as “Nukhba’s Drug” in Israel, Captagon (fenethylline to chemists) carries a chilling legacy. Once a 1960s treatment for attention disorders in children, it morphed into an illicit powerhouse, so much so that it was banned by the mid-1980s for its addictive grip.

Because it's cheap to produce in makeshift labs, it earned the moniker “poor man’s cocaine,” delivering a rush of confidence, stamina, and focus, sometimes laced with aggression or detachment. “It’s not new,” says a security expert who’s tracked its spread. “ISIS fighters popped it before the 2015 Paris attacks. Hamas used it to push through October 7. It makes you relentless.”

The drug’s journey to Tel Aviv traces back to Syria and Lebanon, where it once propped up Bashar Assad’s regime, raking in billions under his brother Maher’s watch. After Assad’s fall, Syria’s new rulers torched the factories, but the supply chain pivoted. Smugglers now funnel it through Jordan and Egypt, stashing pills in car beams, shoe heels, even body cavities. Recent hauls tell the tale: 75,000 tablets seized at Nitzana in 2020, 4 kilograms strapped to Palestinian women at Allenby Bridge in 2023. “They’re creative,” says R., a border official. “But it’s not flooding in yet.”

In Israel’s Arab communities and Bedouin south, Captagon’s been a quiet presence for years. Its leap to the urban nightlife, though, marks a shift. Dr. Uriel Bertler, a narcotics expert with Israel’s police, warns of its dangers: black-market batches, stamped with twin half-moons and a score line, often deviate from the original formula. “It’s amphetamine, sure, but unregulated. You don’t know what’s in it,” he says.

Hospitals have seen the fallout: clubgoers hospitalized, reeling from what they thought was ecstasy. D., a 32-year-old from central Israel, recalls a night it hit him: “It wasn’t calming. It was this intense energy, too much. I had to step outside.” Later, he learned it was Captagon. “Knowing its link to October 7? That shook me.”

Not everyone’s alarmed though. Uri Marantz, a filmmaker who chronicled Israel’s drug underworld in King Khat, calls the panic overblown. “It’s just another stimulant, nothing special. It didn’t turn Hamas into monsters; they were already there.” Still, police data paints a broader picture: last year’s 50,000-pill bust was notable, but ketamine, cocaine, and MDMA dominate seizures. Captagon’s rise, for now, is a slow burn.

For Tel Aviv’s revelers, a pill swallowed in the heat of the night might be a fleeting high or a brush with a drug that powered one of Israel’s darkest days. How long before this shadow from the battlefield casts a deeper pall over the dance floor (if it hasn't already?)

Ynet contributed to this article.