They’re boning up to get high.
Addicts digging up human bones as part of a recipe to make the drug kush has become a national emergency in Sierra Leone and is slowly moving to other West African countries.
Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio took to the airwaves Thursday for a nationwide address about the drug scourge — which has forced police officers to keep watch over cemeteries in the capital of Freetown to prevent young men from digging up skeletons.
“Our country is currently faced with an existential threat due to the ravaging impact of drugs and substance abuse, particularly the devastating synthetic drug kush,” Bio said.
One of the main ingredients in kush is ground-up human bone which, when added to other substances like harmful chemicals, cannabis, herbs and disinfectant, enhances the drug’s effect, the Daily Mail reported Friday.
The drug, which is fairly cheap to procure, provides a lengthy, hypnotic high that takes users out of reality for several hours and first surfaced in the country about six years ago.
Hundreds of young men have recently died of organ failure linked to the dangerous narcotic, one Freetown doctor told the BBC.
Admissions to the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital involving sicknesses linked to kush have risen almost 4,000% between 2020 and 2023, and most victims are young men under 25, the Daily Mail reported.
The nation’s only drug rehab center, located in Freetown, opened this year with just 100 beds, the BBC reported.
Aspiring musician Abu Bakhar, 25, gave up his dreams after kush turned him into a “zombie.”
“Because of drugs I did not concentrate on studies,” Bakhar told Channel 4 News. “Because of drugs I did not concentrate on writing. Because of drugs I did not concentrate on anything.”
He’s now homeless and lives on a landfill site outside Freetown, one of more than a thousand others who reportedly stay there.
Another addict said: “Kush takes you to another world where you don’t know yourself,” another addict revealed.
‘It’s like it has something demonic in it. They see their friends and people around them dying and yet they still take it.