Over the last 5 years a new synthetic drug has been lurking in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s hilly capital. But in the last two years the drug has skyrocketed in popularity and has begun to wipe out a generation of young Sierra Leonians.

Smoked in tiny quantities in a paper wrapper it costs almost nothing and is highly addictive as well as being incredibly dangerous. Users go into a slump and “nod” in a semi conscious state. If too much is smoked then organ failure leads to death. Through out Freetown’s many slums it’s easy to find so called Kush dens. Where dozens of people at any given time of day are smoking.

Help for these addicts is almost out of the question with only one official government rehab centre working after the one other hospital taking patients in was burnt down by a recovering addict who wanted to escape. This desperate need for help has led many to something they can afford and is more available turning to traditional healers for help. Most of these traditional healers have no back ground in medicine and offer no scientific help for their patients. Instead chaining their patients up to prevent them to leave and beating people if they misbehave as well as restricting food and water. The patients in these facilities that are just someones house were all convinced this was the only solution for them to get better and some acknowledging the fact that they’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for the traditional healer.

In February the government announced a national emergency and stepped up police raids on Kush dens and known labs as well as opening the first rehab centre specifically for Kush addicts.

As the government has cracked down on these dens users have moved back to nature taking to mangroves surrounding Freetown protected by the tides and into the woods in the hills. These raids have also made Kush three times more expensive since they started leading to more petty crime s users steal and sell to make money to smoke.

In the last year there have been increasing reports of Kush use growing in Liberia and Guinea both of which share a land border with Sierra Leone. This seems to be the next step for the supply chain with the source of it still being figured out. Through my reporting in Sierra Leone I have found multiple times that the products to make Kush are coming from the UK and from the Netherlands. Both of which have large diaspora populations.