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Sierra Leone: 'Smoking to Survive' - How Sierra Leone's Youth Got Hooked On Kush
RFI, 29 June 2025
A cheap synthetic drug known as kush is ravaging West Africa and its epicentre is Sierra Leone. The government has declared kush a public health emergency, but poverty and trauma… Read more »
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Liberia: Drug Trafficker Gets 40 Years Sentence
Liberian Investigator, 28 February 2025
Defendant Abass Sanor, 42, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison at the Grand Cape Mount County correctional facility for multiple drug-related charges. Read more »
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West Africa: Initiative Against Transnational Crime, Netherlands Institute Warn On Deadly Synthetic Drug
Daily Trust, 26 February 2025
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) and the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael, have alerted stakeholders on the rising… Read more »
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Africa: The Sierra Leonian Gangster Who Gave up Violence and Drugs for Poetry
The Conversation Africa, 17 September 2024
For the past five years, the GANGS project, a European Research Council-funded project led by Dennis Rodgers, has been studying global gang dynamics in a comparative perspective.… Read more »
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Africa: Kush Takes Hold of West Africa's Mano River Basin Youth
ISS, 10 September 2024
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea must stand together to free their youth of this deadly synthetic cannabis. Read more »
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Gambia: No Scientific Proof of Human Bones in 'Kush', Says Taskforce
Foroyaa, 5 August 2024
The National Taskforce on Drugs and Substance Abuse issued a press statement during the weekend saying there is no scientific proof to show that crushed human bones are utilized as… Read more »
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Liberia: Zombie, Kush Crisis Unabated
New Republic, 24 June 2024
Liberians are concerned about the widespread use and unabated inundation of two dangerous substances on the market and the huge impacts they are having on the country's youthful… Read more »
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FrontPageAfrica, 21 June 2024
Christopher Peters, the Officer-In-Charge of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) says most of the illicit drugs that enter Liberia pass through the Sierra Leone border. Read more »
How Sierra Leone's Youth Got Hooked On Deadly "Kush" Drug
Kush, a synthetic cocktail usually made from marshmallow leaves, first appeared in Sierra Leone in the early 2020s and quickly spread across Liberia, Guinea, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal.
It is soaked in industrial chemicals, and is increasingly mixed with opioids up to 25 times stronger than fentanyl, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. The report said kush is likely behind thousands of deaths in West Africa.
Cheap to produce and highly addictive, the Sierra Leonean government declared kush a public health emergency in April 2024, but the drug keeps spreading - overwhelming families, police and the fragile healthcare system.
InFocus
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It's called "Kush" but should not be confused with the drug of the same name found in the US, which is a mixture of "an ever-changing host of chemicals" sprayed on plant matter and smoked. Kush in Sierra Leone is quite different; it is a
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Kush is making inroads among Sierra Leone's youth, although the precise composition of the drug is not always the same.
