"Doctor my tongue is falling"
A 15 year old grade 10 student with great prospects, passion for what life brings, and wishing to enjoy every bit of it made some bad friends. Throughout his early years, he was brilliant and studious. He had recently got an admission to an upper basic school, and it took him little time to start making friends. The friends he made were not the best. His friends influenced him to smoke drugs like cigarette and "weed".
A month ago, the BBC broadcast scenes of youths in Sierra Leone using a particular drug derived from human bones - Kush. Little did we know that this same drug had penetrated our shores.
Kush: Sierra Leone's new illegal drug
Two weeks later, a popular artist in The Gambia, Jizzle had organized an album launching. This young man and his friends could not miss this show as the artist sang songs that appealed to their ears. At the show, he took a sniff of the drug, lost control of his tongue i.e. swallowed his tongue and began to experience difficulty in breathing. He was rushed to one of the referral hospitals in the country- Kanifing General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
This is one of many stories of this drug that is wrecking havoc on our youth.
This drug, Kush is a drug made from human bones. The bones are dug from graves, crushed into powder form, mixed with other chemicals, rolled in paper like cigarette 🚬 and then smoked.
From the narrations of users, they say the drug is so strong that it makes one lose control of their tongue. And out of shock of the experience, they scream that their tongue is "escaping" them, and have to be held by someone for a while until the effect of the drug of the drug has reduced.
The immediate effects of kush on the youths range from mental derangement, tongue clamping with pins, spanners, clips or what-have-you to immediate loss of consciousness.
Effects of the dangerous Kush drug - Man is about to swallow his tongue
With the rising rate of illegal migration to Europe, high crime rate including pickpocketing and killings, the introduction of this drug to our society does us no favors.
The youth are dying.
Free trade within the west Africa subregion is having deadly repercussions. There needs to be more border checks to save our youth. Smugglers of these drugs need to be dealt with by the brutal arms of the law.
We could do better.
Let's have a conversation about this in the comment section.
I hope it was educative 🤞🏾
See you in the next one ❤️