Psychoactive drug kush has prompted a wave of deaths, mental health issues and the digging up of graves.

Sierra Leone’s president has declared a national emergency over rampant drug abuse.

Kush, a psychoactive blend of addictive substances, has been prevalent in the country for years.

President Julius Maada Bio called the drug a “death trap” and said it posed an “existential crisis”.

One of the drug’s many ingredients is human bones - security has been tightened in cemeteries to stop addicts digging up skeletons from graves.

Groups of mostly young men sitting on street corners with limbs swollen by kush abuse is a common sight in Sierra Leone.

    • treefrog@lemm.eeEnglish
      22·
      7 months ago

      They might be getting the formaldehyde from human bones, depending on how it’s controlled in the country.

      Nothing else about that sounds like drug war propaganda.

      • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        72·
        7 months ago

        Why in the fuck would anyone purposefully add formaldehyde?

        I find it really weird people ever believe that some people poison their drugs on purpose. What on Earth would be the point in poisoning your clientele on purpose? Poison does end up in drugs, but usually it’s because of stupid people making them, not because someone is purposefully poisoning people.

        Kush is just a generic name for weed.

        This is most definitely shitty drug war propaganda.

        • Nurgle@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          7 months ago

          Cause smoking formaldehyde gets you high. Take it you’ve never heard of wet, but people will dip cigs or joints in it and smoke them. Wasnt uncommon back in the day that shitty weed would be laced with it.

          Also kush is not referring to the weed strain here.

          • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            51·
            7 months ago

            Yeah kush isn’t referring to the weed here.

            It just so happens that strengthened (fentanyl/other opioid “strengthened”) weed happens to have gotten the colloquial name “Kush”, probably because it started off as people selling stronger and stronger smoke.

            Probably why they then add formaldehyde as well.

            And yeah now that you mention “wet”, I think I have heard about it sometime, but had not remembered that. Weird. I wonder how much that affected why it was in cigarettes.

            Embalming fluid reportedly produces a hallucinogenic effect and causes the cigarette to burn more slowly, potentially resulting in a prolonged high.

            https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs11/12208/index.htm

            Huh.

            But my point is rather that because it’s called kush, people smoking formaldehyde and fentanyl is being sort of associated with just the word “Kush”, which in most contexts, just refers to weed. Thus it’s the same sort of anti-cannabis drug propaganda as always.