There was a flurry of imprecise however lurid reportage a few supposedly addicting and debilitating pseudo-cannabis substance that’s circulating in Sierra Leone and different West African nations. This can be akin to illicit merchandise resembling K2 and Spice, broadly marketed within the US and Europe — but when studies are to be believed, it’s way more harmful.
There’s a whiff of sensationalism to the sudden information accounts of a chemically handled natural substance getting used as a road drug, and apparently destroying lives, in Sierra Leone. However, frustratingly, the studies have supplied no details about what chemical compounds are literally on this new illicit product.
Experiences have additionally not defined why it has taken maintain in West Africa, of all locations, the place hashish is broadly obtainable. The crowning insult to weed-lovers around the globe is that the stuff is being known as “Kush”— appropriating a time period related to high-grade hashish indica.
The Beeb goes yellow?
Surprisingly, probably the most outstanding report on the “Kush” scourge is from the often critical and rigorous BBC. The BBC Information on Feb. 7, 2022, ran a video entitled “Kush: Sierra Leone’s new unlawful drug.”
Grainy and pixelated photos present supposed addicts actually groveling in filth in an open sewer; frenzied youth gesticulating wildly and self-mutilating; teary-eyed ladies confessing that they’ve been lowered to promoting intercourse on the road — all due to “Kush.” Additionally proven are police in camouflage uniforms finishing up raids on the properties of sellers — and uncovering giant plastic baggage of unidentified herbaceous substance. We’re informed: “Medical employees within the capital Freetown say that 90% of the male admissions to the central psychiatric ward are as a consequence of Kush use.”
Featured is Sierra Leonean filmmaker Tyson Conteh, who final April did an in-depth report for the BBC on the oppressive circumstances confronted by intercourse employees in his nation.
“One thing dangerous is going on in my nation,” Conteh relates within the new video. “Not too long ago I’ve seen on social media loads of very, very younger individuals dying premature deaths, operating mad, harming themselves. I hear these horrors are being brought on by an inexpensive new unlawful excessive known as ‘Kush’… Kush has turn out to be king, overtaking costlier road medication like Tramadol.”
Conteh briefly interviews a younger girl who says she sells herself to help her behavior — which appears to battle with the notion that “Kush” is among the cheaper road medication obtainable in Freetown. The lady, recognized solely as Isha, goes from dejection to euphoria after a couple of puffs off what appears to be like like a joint. Isha speaks wistfully of a good friend who died, by robust implication from her Kush behavior — however she additionally says that the good friend was abusing alcohol, and “stopped consuming.”
The digital camera strikes on to what Conteh calls “determined younger Kush addicts looking out by uncooked sewage, hoping to seek out one thing they’ll promote to outlive.” This instantly raises the query of whether or not Kush is responsible for this desperation — or is endemic poverty the important thing issue? Conteh does concede some ambiguity concerning the root reason for the distress: “Smoking Kush is an escape from this life. It’s a vicious circle.”
However there is no such thing as a ambiguity within the assertion that Kush causes violent habits. One person admits that “you go right into a mad world” and “commit crimes.”
Marshmellow leaf?
Additionally interviewed are members of the Sierra Leonean police power’s Transnational Organized Crime Unit or TOCU. An officer, Andrew Ronko, exhibits confiscated Kush — plastic baggage of an herbaceous substance he identifies as “marshmallow leaf.”
He additionally exhibits what are recognized solely as “chemical compounds,” which “are combined collectively to create Kush.” There seems to be no set formulation. Kush comes “in a number of kinds,” Ronko explains. “The dynamics are altering in terms of Kush, ? So it truly is a menace.”
Lastly, we’re given the story of one other determined person, recognized as Tindem. After being exhorted by a public relations officer of the Nationwide Drug Regulation Enforcement Company at a police-organized group assembly, he sees the error of how. He vows to give up Kush for the sake of his two younger youngsters, because the background music shifts from ominous to uplifting.
At no level is it talked about that “kush” is definitely the standard title for a potent however innocuous and even (when used with respect) salubrious THC-laden flower.
From civil struggle to gang struggle
Tyson Conteh didn’t reply to efforts to contact him by social media. Nonetheless, Venture CBD spoke with Kars de Bruijne, head of the West Africa program on the Netherlands Institute of Worldwide Relations (Clingendael), who has served in an advisory capability to police forces within the area. He acknowledges that concern about Kush is quick rising amongst regional legislation enforcement. “Kush can also be in Guinea, however it’s actually huge in Sierra Leone,” he says.
In reality, there are suspicions of cross-border commerce, as Guinea is rising as a regional hub within the narco commerce — particularly, in recent times, for methamphetamine. De Bruijne notes that when Guinea’s border with Mali was closed for a number of months as a consequence of each COVID-19 and political tensions in 2020-21, “there was an explosion of meth in Sierra Leone.” He believes that exports often despatched throughout the Sahara by Mali had been diverted down the coast to Sierra Leone. Claims that drug-traffickers had been behind this month’s tried coup in neighboring Guinea-Bissau additionally attest to the exploding narco-economy within the area.
De Bruijne, nevertheless, questions the notion that Kush makes customers violent. “That’s not the case,” he says. “It makes you lazy.” A lot in order that he believes it’s resulting in a break-down in self-discipline among the many road gangs which have historically used medication to regulate their wards and wage struggle on rivals.
De Bruijne additionally takes concern with the claims concerning the worth of Kush within the BBC report, which signifies {that a} minute amount (sufficient for a thin joint, a few gram) goes for five,000 leones. He says the going worth is definitely 1,000 leones, which is about 10 cents. This compares to five,000 for “successful” of different sadly well-liked road medication, resembling “brown-brown” — which is cocaine or meth minimize with gunpowder. That is utilized subcutaneously, so customers have to really trigger a small wound within the pores and skin with a knife or cigarette.
“Brown-brown” surfaced throughout Sierra Leone’s brutal 1991-2002 civil struggle, when it was used as a instrument to control baby troopers. Variants are nonetheless being offered on the streets, typically known as “Chicklets” or “Thai white.” The nonetheless well-liked Tramadol, an addictive painkiller, goes for about 18,000 leones a pill. De Bruijne believes that Kush emerged partially in response to a crackdown on Tramadol.
The tradition round such unsavory substances took maintain through the struggle, de Bruijne says, however continues to be embedded in that of the Freetown road gangs, that are cultivated as proxies by the rival political events (as was notoriously the case with road gangs in Jamaica within the Seventies). However de Bruijne says that “mobilization of gangs for political ends has turn out to be harder” due to the debilitating results of Kush.
The very unhappy irony right here is that there is no such thing as a scarcity of precise hashish in Sierra Leone. “The coastal states of West Africa are a rising supply of hashish,” de Bruijne says. “It’s grown in actually giant portions within the mountains round Freetown, principally for home consumption.” Identified domestically as ganja, jamba or maggi, it’s competitively priced in comparison with the damaging synthetics — simply 500 leones for a small joint’s price.
Does anybody know what it really is?
Attempting to determine what “Kush” really is entails two questions. First, what herbaceous materials is used as the bottom. And secondly, what are the chemical constituents of the combo it’s handled with.
The BBC report mentions marshmallow leaf, whereas an August 2021 report on a Freetown bust from the native Politico SL makes reference to “mashed mallow plant.” These each presumably discuss with Althaea officinalis, generally referred to as marshmallow — though it’s the root quite than the leaf that’s historically used for medicinal functions, and it’s indigenous to Europe quite than Africa. It’s not intoxicating and never related to any well being hazards.
Nonetheless, a report that very same month on a seemingly totally different bust from the native information website Awoko identifies the seized plant base as “Indian hemp,” describing it as “dried leaves with a sticky really feel and pungent odour.” This quite unambiguously refers to hashish. It also needs to be famous that authorities mentioned this cargo, seized at Freetown’s airport, got here from the UK.
The Politico SL report mentioned that the 41 “sachets” of leaf had been discovered at a wharfside warehouse with “3 litres of acetone liquid.” The Awoko report mentioned the seized “Indian hemp” had been handled with “potassium hydroxide.” This was additionally recognized as “artificial cannabinol”— which it assuredly shouldn’t be.
Acetone is a broadly used solvent and paint remover, which may trigger “confusion,” “dizziness” and “quick coronary heart charge” when inhaled in giant portions. Potassium hydroxide is listed by US well being and environmental authorities as a hazardous substance that “could cause headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting.”
De Bruijne says that tea leaves are sometimes used as the bottom, and that authorities incessantly describe the chemical remedy as merely “fertilizer.” He agrees that the stuff, no matter it’s, seems to be addictive. Nonetheless, the various vegetable base and chemical formulation alike inevitably increase the query of whether or not “Kush” is a discrete substance in any respect — or only a catchphrase for any herbaceous materials handled with any chemical combine.
Synthetics and semantics
The phrase Kush initially referred to the Hindu Kush mountain vary of Afghanistan, the supply of lots of the Hashish indica varietals that had been smuggled to Northern California within the Seventies. These had been embraced by American back-to-the-land cultivators who created new strains by hybridizing Afghan genetics with the Mexican-origin sativa they had been already rising. In stoner slang, “kush” subsequently got here to imply potent, indica-heavy hybridized bud.
It’s straightforward to conjecture that West African purveyors of decrease high quality hashish appropriated this phrase for stuff doctored with chemical compounds in a misguided try to spice up efficiency. However now “Kush” has come to imply, inside the area, the doctored stuff itself.
Within the US and Europe, so-called “artificial marijuana” (a deceptive time period favored by information media) has been marketed beneath names resembling “Spice” or “K2.” Artificial marijuana is invoked to explain nearly any herbaceous materials handled with a chemical concoction designed to imitate (nevertheless crudely) the consequences of THC by supercharging the CB1 cannabinoid receptor within the mind. When these artificial compounds are banned, producers simply tweak a molecule or two to remain forward of the legislation.
As beforehand reported by Venture CBD, artificial cannabinoids had been possible an element within the 2019 outbreak of deaths and pulmonary accidents linked to the consumption of dangerous e-cigarettes and hashish vape pen cartridges.
A number of years earlier, there was a spate of studies in New York about “zombielike” results fairly as ghastly (if not as widespread) as these now seen in Freetown. The wrongdoer was recognized as a type of “artificial marijuana” being marketed as “AK-47” or “24 Karat Gold.” Lab checks decided that the chemical in query was an artificial compound known as AMB–FUBINACA, initially developed by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical firm. It was mentioned to be 85 occasions as potent as Delta-9 THC.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration identifies AMB–FUBINACA as a managed substance; case legislation in america has held that every one psychoactive cannabinoids (together with Delta-8 THC) are lined by the language within the Managed Substances Act that particularly references Delta-9. Nonetheless, some tweaked chemical signatures have strayed far sufficient from something akin to THC that they’ll now not be thought of cannabinoids or cannabinoid analogues — which continues to pose a dilemma for legislation enforcement. The paradox about psychoactive “hemp-derived” cannabinoids since passage of the 2018 US Farm Invoice has added to the confusion.
Ghoulish road violence
Then there was the 2012 case of a person shot by police in Miami whereas participating in quite stomach-churning acts of ghoulish road violence. Sloppy media accounts mentioned he had been beneath the affect of “a brand new type of LSD.” However the small print revealed that the substance concerned was “bathtub salts,” which can comprise amphetamine-like chemical compounds resembling methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), mephedrone, and pyrovalerone. Nothing in anyway to do with lysergic acid diethylamide.
The authorized environment in Sierra Leone could also be much less exacting than within the US, however the ever-morphing nature of the “Kush” formulation additionally raises the query of beneath what statute every variation could also be deemed unlawful, as all of them apparently are.
The mysterious case of “Kush” signifies that, particularly in a traumatized society resembling that of Sierra Leone, the lure of doubtful and probably harmful chemical highs could go deeper than a mere impulse to skirt the legislation or beat prohibition-induced shortage with pseudo-cannabis. Nonetheless, media sensationalism affords little perception, and might even be seen as exploitative — particularly when mild on specifics.
Lastly, it might be a bitter irony if the in poor health results of a foul artificial knock-off ended up contributing to the long-entrenched irrational stigma in opposition to hashish, a protected pure product. Experiences ought to clarify that the West African chemical concoction has appropriated a reputation already in use for generations, spoken with delight by cultivators and aficionados.
Invoice Weinberg, a Venture CBD contributing author, is a 30-year veteran journalist within the fields of drug coverage, ecology and indigenous peoples. He’s a former information editor at Excessive Occasions journal, and he produces the web sites CounterVortex.org and International Ganja Report.
Copyright, Venture CBD. Is probably not reprinted with out permission.
