Within the blistering warmth of Freetown, Sierra Leone, younger males collect on boulevard corners, their limbs swollen, eyes glazed. They’re the sufferers of kush, an inexpensive and fatal artificial drug sweeping the rustic.
However kush isn’t an remoted tragedy. From the townships of apartheid South Africa to the Twenty first-century streets of the United Kingdom, artificial medicine have an extended historical past of flourishing in puts the place society has deserted its maximum susceptible.
Kush first seemed in Sierra Leone round 2016, however its unfold in recent times has been not anything wanting catastrophic. Between 2020 and 2023, psychiatric admissions connected to the drug skyrocketed to a reported 1,865 circumstances on the nation’s handiest psychiatric medical institution.
The drug claims most commonly younger males between the ages of 18 and 25, whose our bodies are ravaged by way of kush’s poisonous results. Docs in Freetown estimate that loads of customers have died from organ failure led to by way of the drug in fresh months.
Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, branded kush a “death trap” and declared a countrywide emergency. The drug, he says, represents an “existential crisis” for the country.
Kush is each reasonable and simply available, bought brazenly at the streets for as low as 20 pence in step with joint. However for the ones addicted to it, the associated fee can climb to £8 an afternoon. It is a staggering sum in a rustic the place the typical source of revenue slightly exceeds £4,000 a yr.
The drug’s substances are similarly chilling. A mixture of hashish, artificial opioids like fentanyl, formalin (utilized in embalming) and, in accordance to a few reviews, floor human bone, it’s a concoction that speaks to the bleakness of existence for many who flip to it.
Channel 4 Information record on kush in Sierra Leone.
Kush’s grip on Sierra Leone isn’t a random phenomenon however a symptom of a far deeper downside. The drug has change into a chemical break out for individuals who see no viable long term for themselves.
For the ones dwelling in poverty and experiencing starvation, kush gives one thing that existence in Sierra Leone steadily can’t: brief reduction from trauma and melancholy. It’s no longer a leisure indulgence however survival in a rustic the place many face day by day battles simply to get by way of.
The drug’s upward thrust follows a trend observed in different portions of the arena, the place artificial ingredients fill the void left by way of damaged techniques.
Apartheid South Africa
The location in Sierra Leone echoes a chilling bankruptcy from South Africa’s apartheid generation. Within the Eighties, methaqualone, a man-made sedative-hypnotic drug – bought as quaalude or mandrax – become broadly used within the townships, in particular amongst Black communities.
Continuously smoked along hashish in a mixture referred to as the “white pipe”, it become an inexpensive, sedative drug just like kush in Freetown these days.
Vice documentary on methaqualone.
The apartheid executive didn’t simply flip a blind eye to its standard use however intentionally inspired it. Below the secretive Mission Coast, the federal government’s chemical and organic war programme, scientists evolved huge amounts of methaqualone, ostensibly for crowd keep an eye on and incapacitation.
Methaqualone used to be no longer formally declared a weapon. However proof compiled by way of the UN suggests it used to be evolved and stockpiled in prototype supply techniques that have been supposed to incapacitate with out killing, then deployed quietly some of the dissenting inhabitants.
The parallels with kush are plain. Each are chemically produced, extremely addictive depressants providing reasonable and simply available sedation to marginalised populations. These kinds of drug don’t simply impact folks however serve to suppress complete communities below the load of structural violence.
In South Africa, methaqualone used to be weaponised by way of the state as a way of keep an eye on, whilst in Sierra Leone, kush has emerged in spaces deserted by way of the federal government. In each circumstances, the impact is identical: a drug-fuelled stasis that deepens melancholy and maintains a establishment of social overlook.
It’s a trend the place a man-made depressant materialises in puts the place no different social or financial medication exists, sedating no longer handiest our bodies however resistance and risk.
Spice in the United Kingdom
This trend of artificial medicine as a reaction to social decay isn’t confined to Africa. In the United Kingdom, artificial medicine similar to spice have change into extra commonplace over the last decade, particularly amongst homeless other folks and prisoners. Described as a “zombie drug” for its paralysing results, spice is steadily used no longer for excitement however to flee starvation, chilly and trauma.
A 2023 find out about some of the UK’s homeless inhabitants discovered that almost 70% of members, elderly 18-64, used artificial medicine similar to spice to flee the tough realities of homelessness. Many reported opposed results that ended in hospitalisation.
In lots of British cities and towns, it has change into commonplace to look customers slumped on pavements or convulsing in parks, echoing the scenes from Sierra Leone’s kush hotspots.
A suspected spice person in Manchester, 2017.
Ian Wray/Alamy
This serves as a stark reminder that artificial medicine don’t seem to be an remoted factor. They’re an international disaster taking part in out in numerous paperwork however with the similar underlying reasons.
Artificial medicine like kush, methaqualone and spice are signs of deeper systemic disasters. They thrive the place housing is volatile, unemployment is rampant and healthcare is out of succeed in. Addressing the disaster calls for extra than simply cracking down on drug use. It calls for a thorough shift in how we deal with probably the most susceptible in our society.
In Sierra Leone, this implies making an investment in adolescence employment, bettering vitamin and strengthening psychological well being services and products. In the United Kingdom, it requires restoring investment to housing and substance use services and products, and recognising that solid safe haven and social beef up are basic to restoration, no longer rewards for abstinence.
If we’re fascinated about tackling this downside, we want to transfer past punishment and concentrate on addressing the basis reasons of habit. Best by way of making an investment in social care and hurt relief are we able to hope to wreck the cycle of sedation and melancholy.
