Despite major progress, tobacco remains the world's leading cause of preventable death and a major driver of heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes
Sources of cash are drying up as front companies and drug production lines are dismantled and supply networks and smuggling routes are compromised. Iran is also questioning its funding of the group.
The Kingdom is working with European partners in its war on drugs. But with such stellar profits to be made and such keen demand, it has been an uphill battle.
The drug trade is bankrolling the Damascus government through an illicit trade valued at around $57bn. Al Majalla explains why it started and how it's shaping Syrian society.
A prevalence of cheap drugs, a lack of awareness, and an inability to detect problems at an early stage are just some of the factors that have created a perfect storm
Synonymous with the country and closely associated with communal Yemeni life, Khat consumption has increased of late, with increasingly harmful effects on the environment, health, and families
Drug production and abuse have wreaked havoc in all corners of the world. In the Middle East, Captagon has emerged as a lucrative business, threatening the social fabric of many parts of the region.
The Middle East and Central Asia have been major opium production centres for millennia but the growing legitimate and illegitimate use of these powerful drugs is also causing big problems
There are concerns about Iranian attempts to influence the internal situation in Jordan, either by using its territory for military actions against Israel or by attacking American entities there.
A newly released US State Department strategy asserts that joint defence programmes in the region were key to success in curbing the Captagon drug trade
There was visible warmth when the US and Syrian presidents met in the Oval Office last month, with some even speculating a Trump visit to Damascus. But there is much to do before that happens.
Following the unprecedented attacks on Qatar, Gulf leaders have pledged to forge a unified defence front, marking a historic shift from cautious neutrality to collective security
What began as a locally rooted trade in coca leaves and opium evolved into a transnational system of cartels that challenged governments, corrupted institutions, and destabilised countries
When Israel killed a Hezbollah military chief in late November, one GBU-39 bomb failed to detonate, leaving Washington worried that its adversaries could reverse engineer it
With her collection 'Con' having won Spain's 2025 National Poetry Prize, the Galician writer spoke to Al Majalla about the process of creation as she works on her first novel.