A deadly new drug is spreading across countries in West Africa, wreaking havoc in local communities.
The drug, known as “kush,” causes users to walk around like zombies, falling over and injuring themselves as they fall asleep on foot, with a dozen dying every week and thousands being hospitalized.
The drug is mostly taken by men aged between 18 and 25 and is worst affecting the country of Sierra Leone, according to a Conversation article by Michael Cole, a professor of forensic science at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK.
Kush—unlike the drug of the same name in the U.S.—is a mixture of several substances, including cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, and even the preservative formaldehyde. Some have claimed that the drug contains ground-up human bones, though experts think this is likely only a rumor.
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, around 1 million people in the region are though to be addicted to the deadly new substance.
“Kush in Africa is a drug that contains a mixture of chemicals including tramadol (a synthetic opiate), cannabis, fentanyl and sometimes formaldehyde. It has become popular as it is affordable and widely available, both factors that drive drug use in any country,” Ian Hamilton, an associate professor of addiction at the University of York in the U.K., told Newsweek.
“Underpinning its popularity are some social factors such as high unemployment, poverty and lack of hope. Kush appears to have arrived at the right time to help those using it numb out the adverse social conditions they experience.”
Read more at Newsweek.com
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