Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this important bipartisan legislation to combat the illicit captagon trade, and I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for introducing it. In recent years, captagon, a highly addictive amphetamine-type stimulant drug, has flooded the Middle East. Captagon makes its users aggressive and dangerous, increasing their capacity to commit crimes and acts of violence. In recent years, we have seen a sudden, drastic rise in captagon smuggling and usage throughout the Middle East. The brutal Iran-backed Assad regime in Syria is one of the main producers of captagon in the region. These war criminals are using narcotrafficking to evade global sanctions and fund their atrocities. Since 2011, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have died because of the Assad regime's unrelenting brutality. This is a regime that, with the support of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, tortures men, women, and children on an unthinkable scale. The Assad regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons against the Syrian people. In response to these crimes, the United States and many of our partners imposed overwhelming sanctions on the Assad regime, but the Assad regime found a workaround in the illicit drug trade. They are further destabilizing the Middle East by flooding our partner countries with drugs, and they are using the profits to stay afloat, despite our existing sanctions.…”