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Within the blistering warmth of Freetown, Sierra Leone, younger males collect on road corners, their limbs swollen, eyes glazed. They’re the victims of kush, an inexpensive and lethal artificial drug sweeping the nation.
However kush isn’t an remoted tragedy. From the townships of apartheid South Africa to the Twenty first-century streets of the UK, artificial medicine have an extended historical past of flourishing in locations the place society has deserted its most susceptible.
Kush first appeared in Sierra Leone round 2016, however its unfold lately has been nothing in need of catastrophic. Between 2020 and 2023, psychiatric admissions linked to the drug skyrocketed to a reported 1,865 circumstances on the nation’s solely psychiatric hospital.
The drug claims principally younger males between the ages of 18 and 25, whose our bodies are ravaged by kush’s poisonous results. Docs in Freetown estimate that a whole lot of customers have died from organ failure attributable to the drug in latest months.
Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, branded kush a “death trap” and declared a nationwide emergency. The drug, he says, represents an “existential crisis” for the nation.
Kush is each low-cost and simply accessible, offered brazenly on the streets for as little as 20 pence per joint. However for these hooked on it, the associated fee can climb to £8 a day. This can be a staggering sum in a rustic the place the common revenue barely exceeds £4,000 a yr.
The drug’s elements are equally chilling. A mixture of hashish, artificial opioids like fentanyl, formalin (utilized in embalming) and, in line with some experiences, floor human bone, it is a concoction that speaks to the bleakness of life for many who flip to it.
Kush’s grip on Sierra Leone isn’t a random phenomenon however a symptom of a a lot deeper downside. The drug has grow to be a chemical escape for individuals who see no viable future for themselves.
For these dwelling in poverty and experiencing starvation, kush affords one thing that life in Sierra Leone usually can not: short-term reduction from trauma and despair. It is not a leisure indulgence however survival in a rustic the place many face each day battles simply to get by.
The drug’s rise follows a sample seen in different components of the world, the place artificial substances fill the void left by damaged programs.
Apartheid South Africa
The state of affairs in Sierra Leone echoes a chilling chapter from South Africa’s apartheid period. Within the Nineteen Eighties, methaqualone, an artificial sedative-hypnotic drug—offered as quaalude or mandrax—turned extensively used within the townships, notably amongst Black communities.
Typically smoked alongside hashish in a combination referred to as the “white pipe,” it turned an inexpensive, sedative drug very like kush in Freetown at present.
The apartheid authorities did not simply flip a blind eye to its widespread use however intentionally inspired it. Underneath the secretive Mission Coast, the federal government’s chemical and organic warfare program, scientists developed giant portions of methaqualone, ostensibly for crowd management and incapacitation.
Methaqualone was not formally declared a weapon. However proof compiled by the UN suggests it was developed and stockpiled in prototype supply programs that had been supposed to incapacitate with out killing, then deployed quietly among the many dissenting inhabitants.
The parallels with kush are simple. Each are chemically produced, extremely addictive depressants providing low-cost and simply accessible sedation to marginalized populations. Most of these drug don’t simply have an effect on people however serve to suppress complete communities underneath the load of structural violence.
In South Africa, methaqualone was weaponized by the state as a method of management, whereas in Sierra Leone, kush has emerged in areas deserted by the federal government. In each circumstances, the impact is identical: a drug-fueled stasis that deepens despair and maintains a established order of social neglect.
It is a sample the place an artificial depressant materializes in locations the place no different social or financial medication exists, sedating not solely our bodies however resistance and chance.
Spice within the UK
This sample of artificial medicine as a response to social decay isn’t confined to Africa. Within the UK, artificial medicine equivalent to spice have grow to be extra frequent over the previous decade, particularly amongst homeless individuals and prisoners. Described as a “zombie drug” for its paralyzing results, spice is commonly used not for pleasure however to flee starvation, chilly and trauma.
A 2023 examine among the many UK’s homeless inhabitants discovered that just about 70% of individuals, aged 18-64, used artificial medicine equivalent to spice to flee the cruel realities of homelessness. Many reported adversarial results that led to hospitalization.
In lots of British cities and cities, it has grow to be frequent to see customers slumped on pavements or convulsing in parks, echoing the scenes from Sierra Leone’s kush hotspots.
This serves as a stark reminder that artificial medicine are usually not an remoted concern. They’re a worldwide disaster taking part in out in numerous varieties however with the identical underlying causes.
Artificial medicine like kush, methaqualone and spice are signs of deeper systemic failures. They thrive the place housing is unstable, unemployment is rampant and well being care is out of attain. Addressing the disaster requires extra than simply cracking down on drug use. It calls for a radical shift in how we deal with probably the most susceptible in our society.
In Sierra Leone, this implies investing in youth employment, enhancing diet and strengthening psychological well being providers. Within the UK, it requires restoring funding to housing and substance use providers, and recognizing that steady shelter and social assist are elementary to restoration, not rewards for abstinence.
If we’re severe about tackling this downside, we have to transfer past punishment and concentrate on addressing the foundation causes of habit. Solely by investing in social care and hurt discount can we hope to interrupt the cycle of sedation and despair.
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