By Isaac Lahai Lamin
The sight of youths consuming synthetic cannabinoid in Sierra Leone especially in the last two years has raised intricate questions around health complications. The Sierra Leone population is largely youthful, comprising sixty-percent of the national demographic composition.
Youths’ attraction to drug consumption was amplified during the brutal civil war (1991-2002) when crack cocaine, diamba, and other stimulant drug types fueled their deadly actions deep in the jungle, decimating innocent lives and properties. Since those heydays gave way to eternity, synthetic drug peddling and intake has been magnified despite national anti-drug laws enacted to curb the menace.
Immediately before, during and after the June 24, 2023 general elections youths became hooked to a new brand of substance abuse; the synthetic cannabinoid with its brand names including kush, k2, and spice. Despite its relatively recent introduction into Sierra Leone, the synthetic cannabinoid is considered as one of the deadliest narcotic drugs with widespread consumption especially by youths and adolescents.
Synthetic cannabinoid has its origin in Afghanistan with its cannabis indica strain and wide sub categories. The drug is used as alternative to marijuana which has been in circulation for long period in Sierra Leone. The local brand is existentially deadly due to concoction of decayed bones of human remains dug from their graves. Content of formalin solution derived from formaldehyde, found in bones of human remains are scraped and used in the production of the local brand of kush. This chemical content and other concoctions react in the liver of the consumer damaging the entire anatomy.
As a result of this condition, the consumers of kush have manifested severe health complications emanating from damages heaped on their liver and other essential internal organs. At the Kissy mental home, the governments’ only mental hospital, about two hundred youths admitted in the facility were diagnosed of substantial synthetic cannabinoid (kush) level in their liver and blood stream. That figure has quadrupled. The health implications of kush have been far-ranging. Victims are spotted in working dead scenes, sleep-walking and tottering in abject hallucination. In this state of mind, many have abruptly ended their lives by falling in deep drainages or pit holes, or slipping off from high objects, or simply hit by moving vehicles. For many, swollen feet with steep sores become the nightmare of their experiences. They give up the ghost while rotting in parts, sometimes in the street, or drainages or by the roadside.
Many youths have so far lost their lives in kush track or merely “missing in action”. Lack of robust medical attention and care as a result of dissociations produce more death precipitations. The experience of medical disturbances due to kush intake is now a sub-regional contagion. Neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia also continue to battle with youths collapsing into mental instability, physical injuries and death. Blame games of spill over effects from Sierra Leone has been pouring, without thoughtful consideration of solid remedial actions, especially from the Guinean neighbours. However, recent stakeholder approach in Sierra Leone, including government Ministers, the Police, Civil society organisations, community stakeholders, and non-state actors, may mitigate the experience. By and large, the youth population is wanning under the hood of severe complicated health complications sparked by aggressive consumption of synthetic cannabinoid by largely youths and adolescents in Sierra Leone. The experience is a generational loss that should be confronted headlong by all members of the Sierra Leone community if the state is to survive and thrive in the coming decades.