Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency on Friday over surging abuse of kush, an addictive drug that can be manufactured from powdered human bones. Addicts have been digging up graves to get the bones they need, prompting the police to station guards around cemeteries in the capital city of Freetown.
Kush is a synthetic cannabinoid drug that began circulating in Sierra Leone less than a decade ago. It is mixed and sold by organized criminal gangs, who use a variety of different substances to concoct it, including poisonous chemicals and the ubiquitous scourge of the modern drug scene, fentanyl. One of the ingredients in the most potent kush mixtures is sulfur, which can be obtained by grinding up human bones. Some users also hope to extract formaldehyde from embalmed human tissue.
The presence of human bones in the drug mixture also lends it an aura of supernatural mystique. Early reports treated the use of powdered bone as apocryphal, an urban legend that might have been started by the gangs as a marketing technique, but apparently many users are firmly convinced that human bones are an essential ingredient. As the popularity of kush exploded, so did incidents of grave-robbing.
Kush abuse flourished in Sierra Leone with astounding speed. A local doctor told the UK Telegraph in January that there were 47 known users in 2020, but the number of kush addicts admitted to hospitals surged over 2,000 in 2023, and many more are believed to have died at home or in the streets.
Government officials today say only a fraction of the rampaging kush epidemic is reported to police or doctors, and even that fraction is overwhelming hospitals and clinics. There is only one dedicated drug treatment center in Sierra Leone, it has been in operation for less than a year, and it only has 100 beds.
The Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital estimated kush-related illness and death has increased by 4,000 percent over the past four years. Some doctors attributed this explosive growth to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and its economic disruptions.
Kush users have a tendency to experience severe physical and psychological reactions to the drug, especially when they smoke mixtures that include potent toxic chemicals. Many of the victims die from organ failure, and visibly swollen limbs are a common symptom of heavy use.
Most of the users are young men, who say the state of hypnotic, surreal ecstasy they experience is worth the side effects, and the utter destruction of their lives.
for compounding to get high?
