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The Synthetic Plague: How “Kush” is Devouring Africa!

Kush is the new drug devouring the financially disadvantaged alleyways in Africa such as Freetown and Sierra Leone.

This drug is so bad that one hit of it and you are immediately hooked and addicted for life with no chance of recovery – it is that bad.

This drug mainly used by young men but is also taking children and females as well leaves the user in severely twitching catatonic states in the usual places such as in subways and under concrete bridges where their skin is peeling and tearing off and the eyes dead, bloodshot and vacant.

Babies are being born with severe and mysterious rashes not seen before by doctors and the mothers severely dazed and semi paralysed from their last high.

And this description is just the tip of the iceberg as this drug called Kush is a new synthetic man-made street drug and its spread is now unstoppable.

There is no comparison to heroin or crack or any of the other usual grade A drug. This drug is a new breed of toxic poison often called a chemical Frankenstein and it’s not engineered or made in the usual hidden mountainside or jungle laboratories or even underground bunkers.

People on the ground who are dealing with this on a daily basis are now warning it’s no longer an issue in Africa. It’s a crisis that is quietly moving around the world and it’s predicted to be a global time bomb just waiting for the right pathways or routes to carry it into Europe and western cities.

What exactly is Kush – and what is it doing to people?

Kush was originally a slang term for the strong form of cannabis but today Kush has no resemblance to its previous state. Kush is a chemical cocktail, a Frankenstein mix of synthetic cannabinoids which is a lab made compound that mimic THC and most alarming, nitazines, a class of opioids up to 25 times stronger than fentanyl.

This drug enters the user via smoking and anyone who tries it just once is immediately hooked. This drug then sends the user into near immediate trance like states within seconds and unlike marijuana the effects on the user are hideously and grotesquely unpredictable and leaves the users drooling, dripping pools of saliva, frozen in mid step or convulsing in open air locations.

Many cannot walk and others have festering sores and eruptions all over their skin especially the legs which becomes impossible to heal.

In a nutshell this nasty drug isn’t for recreational use and many users who try it are usually trying it because they’re in a state of depression or hopelessness and is often used as an escape to what the user is currently experiencing, which is often homelessness, destitution and complete loss or failing in society. Hence the groups that are often seen under bridges and subways. This drug is a biochemical devastation.

Why West Africa?

Kush first appeared in Sierra Leone in around 2022 and it has since started spreading rapidly through Liberia, Guinea Bissau and now, The Gambia who has recently launched a zero tolerance and complete crackdown and criminal prosecutions due to the severity of this drug and its effect on its users which is spreading like wildfire.

Vast poverty and youth unemployment. Vulnerable teenagers with no hope are mostly targeted and affected.

A serious lack of treatment options, therapies or rehabilitation centres, facilities and almost zero mental health services for those in need. In many of these communities the addiction is now the dominant social force at work.

Many users are between the ages of 15 to 25 and many people call them the ‘under de bridge families’ – a whole generation melting before people’s eyes and nothing can be done to help.

The Global Risk: And why this will not stay in Africa!

Experts in this field warn that this will not remain an African tragedy and is already circling across Europe along with its very low production costs and easily sourced online along with the skyrocketing demand for this high potency high that it gives its users. It’s only a matter of time before this drug creeps into every city in most Western countries.

It is predicted now that Kush could be the new fentanyl crisis but worse and more volatile and more mobile and certainly less understood.

What needs to be done urgently?

A time bomb is ticking away and the Kush epidemic requires immediate action on multiple fronts before it’s too late.

Public health funding including therapeutic addiction treatments and various forms of youth outreach centres.

Vast distributed educational campaigns to warn vulnerable populations before Kush spreads any further.

The root must be addressed with insight into the long-term emerging effects such as poverty and hopelessness including institutional collapses which are making this an actual coping mechanism for a lost generation of youth.

This is exactly the starting point institutional collapses, poverty hopelessness and worthlessness giving people the thoughts of – they’ve got nothing to lose but to escape what they’re already experiencing. This has been part of the reason why they say yes and put their hand out and take that first smoke.

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