Sierra Leone’s Kush Epidemic: Addicts Turn Grave Diggers, Exhume Corpses To Make Psychoactive Drug

Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio last week announced that drug abuse in the country was a “national emergency” and outlined plans to combat Kush, a synthetic drug popular with young people in the West African nation.

“It is my solemn duty as president… to declare a national emergency on drug abuse. Our country is currently facing an existential threat due to the devastating impact of drugs and drug addiction, in particular the devastating synthetic drug kush,” Julius Maada Bio said.

He has also instructed to heighten the security around cemeteries as one of the drug’s many ingredients is human bones and addicts dig up skeletons from graves to make Kush.

It is now a common sight in Sierra Leone to see groups of mostly young men sitting on street corners with swollen limbs, caused by kush abuse.

Bio also said his government was working to take down drug trafficking networks. Police seized two containers in the capital of Freetown that were filled with kush, police commissioner Joseph Lahai said last week and added that seven suspects were taken into custody.

Deaths from Kush abuse have also risen across the country. A doctor speaking to news agency BBC said even though there is no official death toll, hundreds of young men had died from organ failure caused by kush in the last few months in capital Freetown.

Kush is also known to take a toll on mental health. Authorities of the only mental health institution in the West African nation, the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, told the UK broadcaster that between 2020 and 2023, admissions linked to kush surged by almost 4,000% to reach 1,865.

To curb manufacturing and use police have deployed personnel at the Kissy Road cemetery in Freetown, it is a burial site which is unfenced and is located near the eastern suburbs of the capital.

A report by Africanews said citizens of Sierra Leone are uniting to fight the menace of kush. “I also reflected on the positive side and realised there’s a better room for improvement for me to make it up in life. So that’s why I decided that it’s never too late in my life,” Tamba Bockarie, a former addict, was quoted as saying by the news outlet.