People Dig up Human Bones to Make a Drug Called ‘Kush’

• Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency over widespread drug abuse.
• One drug inflicting explicit concern within the West African nation is the artificial drug “kush.”
• Locals say the drug is made with floor human bones.

Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, is a bustling African port metropolis on the Atlantic Ocean, the place even the lifeless cannot relaxation, say its residents.

Cemeteries are bolstering their safety measures as a result of gravediggers are stealing human bones to make highly effective artificial medication, native journalists instructed Enterprise Insider.

Sierra Leone, in West Africa, declared a state of emergency in April over rising circumstances of artificial drug abuse because of the unfold of “kush,” which comprises floor human bones, locals say.

Addressing the nation on April 4, Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, stated the nation was dealing with “an existential risk” from “the ravaging impression of medication and substance abuse, significantly the devastating artificial drug kush.”

As with the rise of artificial drug use in different elements of the world, such because the fentanyl disaster within the US, kush may very well be set to unfold.

Worldwide growth is “virtually inevitable,” Michael Cole, a professor of forensic science at Anglia Ruskin College within the UK, instructed BI.

Whereas there are not any official statistics on the variety of customers of the drug, they aren’t onerous to identify, experiences say.

The streets of Freetown, the nation’s capital, are stated to be awash with younger males, typically sitting or mendacity within the spot the place they misplaced consciousness after smoking the drug, Sally Hayden reported for The Irish Occasions.

Why locals say kush is usually made with floor human bones

Kush has been round for years in Sierra Leone, however its precise origin and composition stay unclear.

Cole instructed BI that kush was a mix of tobacco, hashish, tramadol, and fentanyl — however he famous that some imagine it may additionally include formaldehyde, a preservative utilized in embalming fluid for corpses.

Formaldehyde additionally has euphoric properties, says the Nationwide Library of Drugs, which explains why kush customers may very well be raiding Freetown’s cemeteries.

Mabinty Magdalene Kamar, the editor of an area information outlet, Politico SL, stated that kush customers had claimed to her that the medication did certainly include bones.

“We heard tales about boys breaking into cemeteries and tombs after which taking out the bones of lifeless our bodies, grinding them simply to provide kush,” she instructed BI.

The drug has a ravaging impact on customers’ bodily well being. Abdul Jalloh, a psychological well being knowledgeable and hospital care supervisor on the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Instructing Hospital, instructed BI he had noticed kush customers affected by points corresponding to pores and skin necrosis, ulcers, wounds, oral points, kidney and liver issues, and eye infections.

It can be deadly, with one physician telling the BBC that “in current months,” a whole lot of males had died in Freetown after struggling organ failure attributable to the drug.

Police guard Freetown’s cemeteries

Native media shops have reported circumstances of gravedigging for bones to extract formaldehyde and make the drug.

Thomas Dixon, the editor of the Salone Occasions newspaper in Freetown, instructed BI that whereas his publication had not been capable of affirm the usage of human bones within the drug, “you will notice lacking bones” should you go to cemeteries within the metropolis.

Fears over grave robbing for kush manufacturing have change into so widespread within the metropolis that some cemeteries have requested police safety, the BBC reported.

Enterprise Insider contacted the Freetown Police Drive for remark.

“It makes you overlook”

Jalloh stated most kush customers had been “between the ages of 20 to 34.”

Sierra Leonians face hovering unemployment charges, and far of its inhabitants lives in poverty — and a few appear to be turning to kush in a bid to overlook such issues.

Jalloh stated that most of the sufferers he had handled cited unemployment, stress, and peer strain among the many causes they’d began utilizing the drug.

“It makes you overlook,” Salifu Kamara, a 21-year-old kush person, instructed NPR. “We’re beneath such pressure. There is not any work. There’s nothing right here.”

Thomas Dixon stated he believed it pointed to a “systemic failure” within the nation, including that kush turned younger individuals into “zombies.”

“Younger individuals do not imagine within the authorities anymore. The individuals do not imagine within the political system anymore – they’re sliding into taking medication,” he stated.

Jalloh famous that the usage of artificial medication was not distinctive to Sierra Leone.

“It is a world disaster in every single place,” he stated.

And with the rise of artificial drug use in different elements of the world, such because the fentanyl disaster within the US, kush may very well be set to unfold.

Worldwide growth is “virtually inevitable,” Cole stated.

Artificial cannabinoids

Authorities have likened kush to artificial cannabinoids, the Guardian experiences.

Artificial cannabinoids are chemically engineered substances that mimic the consequences of hashish however will be far more dangerous and unpredictable.

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) warns that poisonous artificial cannabinoids may cause fast coronary heart fee, vomiting, agitation, confusion, and hallucinations.

“Artificial marijuana” will be as much as 100 occasions as potent as conventional marijuana, inducing excessive bodily results like seizures, psychosis, and even dying.

In 2015, BI’s Erin Brodwin coated the rise of those artificial medication, marketed as “spice,” “K2,” “black mamba,” or “loopy clown.”

Brodwin reported that drugmakers change the precise elements within the medication so quick — and produce them in such huge portions — that drug enforcement cannot sustain.

In 2021, Kensington, a low-income neighborhood in North Philadelphia, turned infamous for abuse of a sedative known as “tranq.” Also called “xylazine,” the animal sedative was typically lower with different medication. A side-effect of this drug will be struggling to face upright, which is why customers are generally described within the media as “zombies.”

Final month, the Monetary Occasions reported that tranq had reached the UK.