‘Kush’ medication from Sierra Leone produced with chemicals from China and the UK, according to a report

In a report released Tuesday, it was revealed that new testing of a cheap and lethal substance that has caused a national emergency in Sierra Leone is made up of imported synthetic opioids and cannabinoids.

Julius Maada Bio, the president of Sierra Leone, issued a national emergency on substance usage last April in response to requests for a crackdown on kush, a drug that is also used in at least five other West African nations.

The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) and Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, reported that the lack of knowledge about the chemicals in kush and where they came from has made efforts to tackle it more difficult.

The medicine is entirely created in Sierra Leone and has long been the subject of widespread rumors that it contains anything from rat poison to acetone and human bones.

The government of Sierra Leone requested the tests, which instead showed that certain samples included nitazenes, synthetic opioids up to 25 times more strong than fentanyl.

According to the report’s results, China, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands are “the key exporters of kush” and its constituents.

“The country lacks the necessary testing capacity and Sierra Leone has been in the dark about what was in kush for years,” stated Kars de Bruijne, senior research fellow at Clingendael.

“Naloxone is an obvious treatment for users of kush made with opioids,” he said, adding that the research released on Tuesday can aid authorities in the fight against overdoses. Additionally, he stated that it can assist authorities in locating “points of production” overseas and reducing the presence of kush in Sierra Leone.

Fentanyl and other opioids can have their effects reversed or blocked by the medication naloxone.

Young people in Sierra Leone who are disillusioned and jobless can afford Kush.

Although official numbers on kush-related deaths are unknown, the story stated that officials conducted group cremations after a spike in deaths a few years ago.

In Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, kush has probably killed thousands of people. The director of GI-TOC’s Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa, Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo, added that the drug is rapidly spreading.

Nitazenes found in kush samples demonstrate that the substance is “part of a global threat, and not only a West African challenge,” the speaker stated.

“It is likely just the first of a growing range of synthetic drugs targeting the region.”