Emergency in Sierra Leone: Kush - a drug whose ingredient is also human bone, addicts dig up skeletons from graves

The president of Sierra Leone has declared a state of emergency due to increasing drug abuse, writes the BBC.

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

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

One of the many ingredients of the drug is human bones - security has been tightened at cemeteries to prevent addicts from digging up skeletons from graves.

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

With a bandage around his ankle, one recovering addict told the BBC that the drug had a firm grip on him.

There is no official death toll, but one doctor told the BBC that "over the past months" hundreds of young men have died of organ failure in the capital, Freetown, from using kush.

The psychoactive substance also affects mental health - The Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, the only institution of its kind in the country, says that between 2020 and 2023, the number of patients linked to kush rose by almost 4.000 percent to 1.865.

A surge in the use of kush has led to Freetown's main cemeteries seeking police security to protect them from youths digging up skeletons - ground human bone is one of the many ingredients used to make kush, although it is not clear why, according to the BBC.

"Our country is currently facing an existential threat due to the devastating impact of drug and substance abuse, especially the devastating synthetic drug kush," President Bio said in his address.

He added that "the number of deaths has escalated" among kusha users.

The president also authorized officials to establish a National Task Force on Drug and Substance Abuse, which will primarily focus on "combating the kush crisis."

He said centers will be established in each district and "adequately staffed with trained professionals will provide care and support to people with drug addiction."

Currently, Freetown is home to the only functioning drug rehabilitation center in the country.

The 100-bed facility was set up at the Army training center earlier this year.

Experts have described it as "more of a detention center than a rehabilitation center" due to the lack of adequate facilities.

In addition to dealing with treatment, the president said law enforcement agencies should "disrupt the drug supply chain through investigations, arrests and prosecutions."

Freetown Deputy Mayor Kweku Lisk told the BBC that his office had requested police security to deal with those digging graves, according to the BBC.

Currently, police are deployed at night at the Kisii Road cemetery, a large unfenced site in the eastern suburbs.

President Bio's administration has been criticized by people who say it lacks strategy and the desire to respond to the abuse of kusha.

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

This sentiment echoes in calls from some local radio shows and on social networks.

Dr. Abdul Jaloh, head of the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, said Bio's emergency declaration was "a step in the right direction" and would be "crucial in addressing the problem of drug use."

"It means prioritizing resources, attention and intervention to fight this growing epidemic," he said.

About 63 percent of the current patients at the hospital were admitted with colic-related problems.

Marie, a mother who lost her 21-year-old son to measles, said: "The authorities need to do a lot more than the president's address last night to curb this scourge."