The plague of dug up graves caused by a drug crisis is what Sierra Leone is facing now.
An emergency has been declared in the African country due to a growing addiction to a drug known as kush. In addition to fentanyl and cannabis, one of its ingredients will be human bones.
"It makes people walk like zombies. They fall, sometimes even fall asleep standing up. Every week, a dozen or so people die because of it, and thousands are hospitalised," this is what Newsweek recently wrote about the drug known as kush.
They dig up graves and desecrate bodies
The psychoactive mixture has been known in Sierra Leone for years. It consists of cannabis, fentanyl and tramadol, which are highly addictive, and formaldehyde, which can cause hallucinations.
Additionally, the joints are also supposed to contain ground human bones. That's why police protection has appeared in cemeteries in Sierra Leone. The BBC describes that kush addicts are digging up graves and desecrating corpses. According to experts, this ingredient in the drug does not provide any effect beyond the psychological one.
As The Conversation writes, one joint costs about 25 cents. "Its popularity is based on certain social factors, such as high unemployment, poverty and lack of prospects," said in an interview with Newsweek, an addiction specialist at the University of York in Great Britain, Prof. Ian Hamilton.
"Deathtrap"
The official death toll is unknown, but a doctor interviewed by the BBC said that in recent months alone in the capital, Freetown, hundreds of young men have died from organ failure caused by kush - men aged 18-25 are most likely to use it.
The Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital reports that between 2020 and 2023, the number of drug-related admissions increased by almost 4,000%.
Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio says the drug is a "death trap." "Our country is currently facing an existential threat because of the devastating impact of drugs," he said.
The government has launched preventive mechanisms and is also working to treat and support addicts. The police are ordered to strictly enforce the law against the network of dealers. The president wants to dismantle the "drug supply chain." Two containers containing kush have already been intercepted.
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This article was originally published on Onet Travel.