UN Sierra Leone declares emergency over drug kush - made from human bones - Security has been tightened in cemeteries to stop addicts digging up skeletons from graves.

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Sixty-three percent of patients at Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital have been admitted for kush-related issues

Sierra Leone's president has declared a national emergency over rampant drug abuse.

Kush, a psychoactive blend of addictive substances, has been prevalent in the country for years.

President Julius Maada Bio called the drug a "death trap" and said it posed an "existential crisis".

One of the drug's many ingredients is human bones - security has been tightened in cemeteries to stop addicts digging up skeletons from graves.

Groups of mostly young men sitting on street corners with limbs swollen by kush abuse is a common sight in Sierra Leone.

With a bandage around his ankle, one recovering addict told the BBC the drug has a tight grip on him.

"I don't like doing this, but I cannot leave it because I enjoy it," he said.

There is no official death toll, but one doctor told the BBC that "in recent months" hundreds of young men had died from organ failure caused by kush in the capital, Freetown.

The psychoactive substance also takes a toll on mental health - the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, the country's only institution of its kind, says between 2020 and 2023, admissions linked to kush surged by almost 4,000% to reach 1,865.


And the spike in kush use has seen Freetown's main cemeteries request police security to protect themselves from young men digging up skeletons - ground-up human bone is one of the many ingredients used to make kush, although it is not clear why.

In a nationwide broadcast on Thursday night, President Bio said: "Our country is currently faced with an existential threat due to the ravaging impact of drugs and substance abuse, particularly the devastating synthetic drug kush."

He added that there had been "escalating fatalities" among kush users.

The president also directed officials to set up a National Task Force on Drugs and Substance Abuse, which will primarily focus on "combatting the kush crisis".

He said centres will be set up in every district and "adequately staffed by trained professionals to offer care and support to people with drug addiction".

At present, Freetown is home to the country's only functioning drug rehabilitation centre. The 100-bed facility was hurriedly set up in an army training centre earlier this year.

Experts have described it as "more of a holding centre than a rehab" because of its lack of adequate facilities.

As well as addressing treatment, the president said law enforcement agencies should "dismantle the drug supply chain through investigations, arrests, and prosecutions".

Deputy Mayor of Freetown Kweku Lisk told the BBC that his office had requested security from the police in order to tackle gravediggers.

At the moment, there is a night-time police deployment at the Kissy Road cemetery, a large unfenced site in an eastern suburb.

Mr Bio's administration has been criticised by people who say it lacks the strategy and drive to respond to kush abuse.

"Such is the vacuum left by the lack of adequate response that communities have often had to take the law into their own hands and have responded to the crisis sometimes in a disjointed and crude manner", said a foreign diplomat in Sierra Leone.

This sentiment has been echoed by callers on some local radio talk shows and on social media.

Dr Abdul Jalloh, head of the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, said Mr Bio's emergency declaration is "the right step" and will be "crucial in addressing drug use".

"It signifies the prioritisation of resources, attention and intervention to combat this growing epidemic," he said.

Some 63% of the hospital's current patients were admitted with kush-related problems.

Marie, a mother who lost her 21-year-old son to kush, said: "There is a lot the authorities must do beyond the president's address last night to combat this scourge."

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Excerpts from another article on the drug:
The men are on kush, a form of synthetic cannabinoid that has taken this West African nation by storm since it first appeared on the scene six years ago. Routinely cut with an array of additives including acetone, the opioid tramadol and formalin, a toxic chemical commonly used to preserve bodies in mortuaries, kush is both potent and dangerously unpredictable. It's also easily accessible and dirt-cheap, and has proved irresistible to a generation of unemployed young Sierra Leoneans seeking an escape from lives of grinding poverty.

"It makes you forget," says 21-year-old kush user Salifu Kamara, who estimates that roughly 80% of the young people in his neighborhood are now taking the drug. "We're under such strain. There's no work. There's nothing here."
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Kush is a depressant. It offers relief from the everyday stresses of life, but at a heavy cost. Users say the high is often accompanied by a pounding sensation in the head and pain in the neck and joints. And the typical trajectory for heavy users is all too familiar: Those still in school drop out. Those with jobs stop turning up to work. In time, many turn to theft to fund their habit. They start to forego basic hygiene. Their immune systems become weakened. Sores fester, and many complain of severe swelling in the feet and lower legs.
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Sierra Leone also has extremely limited capacity for drug treatment and rehabilitation. The U.S. non-profit Partners in Health has set up a new mental health hotline that kush users can call to speak to a counsellor. Kargbo says the government has plans to build three new rehab facilities in the Freetown area in response to the rise of kush. But for now, the country has only two institutions catering to drug users. One, the City of Rest Rehabilitation Centre, set in the hills above Freetown, had only two patients at the time of writing. Most of it was burned down in April by a patient being held there against his will, according to the center's director.

The only other option for drug rehabilitation services is the National Psychiatric Teaching Hospital in the east end of Freetown, where, according to acting director Jusu Mattia, some 70% of the patients are now kush users, many of them suffering from forms of psychosis or other mental illness.
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Part of what makes kush so dangerous is that users can never be certain what's in it. Local media have reported on widespread rumors that some producers add ground-up human bones, though no direct evidence of it has emerged.

Officials in the capital believe the raw materials of the drug are being shipped into Freetown from overseas before being mixed in makeshift labs throughout the country. But much about the sources of the supply is still unknown. In the meantime, authorities have launched a nationwide crackdown on dealers and users of the drug, known as "Operation Zero Tolerance."
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Kang had moved back to Freetown from the U.S. at the age of 22 and had three daughters. After two of them died of disease, he sank into depression and turned to drugs and alcohol. At first, he took whatever he could get his hands on. Then kush arrived in Sierra Leone.

"It destroyed my family," said Kang. "It's so addictive, and it costs less than a pack of chewing gum. How can you even control that?"
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What if the ground up bones ingredient started as just busybody mom/churchlady talk to get the kids scared of the stuff and then the natural happened? Graves dug up.
 
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