Sierra Leone declares a national emergency over drug abuse

President Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency on drug and substance abuse on 4 April 2024, focusing on the drug sold as kush.^[1] He promised treatment and recovery support alongside stronger enforcement against suppliers, with a national task force to coordinate the response.^[1]

Families became the centre of the appeal

Bio described young people dying, families being torn apart and communities struggling with addiction.^[1] He called kush a synthetic drug and presented its spread as a threat to the country’s future.^[1]

His address placed responsibility across government, security agencies, community groups and development partners.^[1] Recovering people with substance use disorder were also to take part in the national task force.^[1]

The speech joined a health response to an enforcement campaign: it promised help for people with addiction and action against the networks supplying them.^[1]

Treatment was one part of the strategy

The president set out five strands: prevention, care and treatment, social support, law enforcement and community engagement.^[1] He promised accessible treatment centres in every district, counselling, skills training and help returning to community life.^[1]

He also pledged investigations, arrests and prosecutions to disrupt supply chains, and urged the judiciary to prioritise drug cases.^[1] The task force was to work through chiefdoms, towns and districts under presidential oversight.^[1]

Testing changed the account of kush

At the time of the declaration, public descriptions of kush included many untested claims about its contents.^[2] Researchers from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and local partners subsequently examined samples in Freetown and Bissau using equipment that identifies chemical signatures.^[2]

Their June report gave preliminary evidence of synthetic cannabinoids and nitazenes, a group of synthetic opioids, in samples sold as kush.^[2] The authors said further laboratory testing was needed to confirm the findings and challenged rumours about ingredients such as fentanyl.^[2]

The study connected better identification of the drug with the search for an effective public-health response.^[2]

A new campaign used an existing criminal system

Sierra Leone’s 2008 drug law already criminalised unlawful drug possession and use, created a national enforcement agency and authorised destruction of unlawful cannabis crops.^[3] It also gave courts some discretion over punishment and treatment.^[3]

Bio’s emergency address added a national programme of promised care, prevention and enforcement to that existing system.^[1][3] The next challenge for Sierra Leone was turning those commitments into treatment and recovery support while researchers established what people were actually consuming.^[1][2]