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A new drug known as “kush” that turns users into “zombies” and is rumored to contain ground-up human bones is killing around a dozen people every week.
Not to be mistaken with the drug of the same name in the United States, this kush is spreading in countries across West Africa and is made of of different substances.
According to the Telegraph, this kush is made of a mixture of several substances, including cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formalin, formaldehyde, and, it is rumored, ground-up human bones.
It is believed that around one million people in the region are addicted to this “zombie” drug.
The drug has become commonplace across Sierra Leone, with whole neighbourhoods and communities addicted to the narcotic. But putting a precise figure on usage rates is difficult.
The Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital in Freetown says it has been overwhelmed with addicts in recent years. The number of referrals keeps rising on a daily basis, and many are sedated upon arrival at the facility due to their violent tendencies.
“We have already recorded nearly 2,000 cases of kush addicts in 2023 at the hospital. Many are dying in homes and on the streets,” Dr. Jusu Mattia, acting medical superintendent at the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, told the Telegraph.
Kush users have been reported to repeatedly bang their heads against walls, walk into traffic, and fall from high places to their deaths.
“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.”
Hamilton added that he believes the rumors of this “zombie” drug containing ground-up human bones is most likely just that – a rumor.
“I am highly skeptical about the idea that human bones are used to make kush as there is nothing in human bones that would be intoxicating even if they belonged to individuals who had used drugs like kush,” Hamilton said.
That being said, a report by Channel 4 – the British public broadcast service – says local communities are forming groups called “Friends of the Dead” to stop grave robbers as a result of the kush problem.
They even showed empty graves in Sierra Leone where remains have been removed for the bones with one example of a grave where everything was left behind and in tact except for the bones.
More than 1,000 graves have been desecrated in this manner, one local resident told Channel 4.
“Human bones contain a lot of sulfur and sulfur has the the potential of giving that feeling of high,” Dr. Mattia stated. “Especially when taking in at high concentration and when inhaled because it goes directly to the brain.”