Samuel Kallon 
By Hassan I. Conteh
“Down Volume” is now a Kush haven for addicts of the deadly substance abuse.
The place is at a below swamp environment on top of the main dumpsite in Waterloo.
These drug “intakers” have no future as they look pale and shrink.
Looking at their faces, no hope, at all, is seen on them.
The other youth barely in his early 30s, bent down on his knees scratching his foot.
He appeared decent a bit but not that too decent. Farther the swamp area, Down Volume, there are more of them — zumbies-like humans.
They live together with the community people there.
The place is a swamp-field where the rubbish from a big waste site is spilling over.
The Freetown Park waste site is the biggest in Waterloo.
Plans are to move it off there to upcountry, but such moves never hold water.
It is down this swamp that has been turned to a hive of Kush addicts. These hard-to-talk to guys don’t seem bother about their health and life demise.
As their friends die one after another with sores on their feet, others left don’t take heed.
Campaigners and state officials like police seem to have tired now.
To get these guys to stop the smoking.
The warners have sapped out their energy and courage to warn them to stop taking the “grass-power” drug.
In most Kush hideouts like Bengazi Wharf at Moa Wharf community, in Freetown east, Kush have had a lasting negative impact on the community, once a busy youthful community.
Fishing activities have stopped. Laborers are no more.
No football galas. Youth who often go on fishing expeditions are now Kush men, old and haggard as they snif the harmful drug.
While at Old Wharf community, east of Freetown, stealing is common among the Kush- old-looking youth.
They would go around stealing community’s people things like pots, basic cooking utensils (spoons, etc), residents have said.
In Waterloo, back off an Africell’s office kiosk, some women told our investigator the kush guys “don’t torment us here; they are on their own.”
Up at the Main Motor Road, Tombo Junction, at Africell’s kiosh, it was the sitting place of the Kush addicts.
Few months and a year ago, you could see Kush addicts, in teams -usually puffing the “grass” or power drug.
Children were among as young as 10, 12 and 15 years old.
They could be seen there in the morning and evening hours, curving their bodies with head down to their toes, like loose bike seats after sniffing the new abnormal drug.
Lately, they have been further pushed to Down Volume.
At down volume, these potential Sierra Leoneans are killing the volume of their life just gradually as they smoke the Kush.
