2025-10-15
36 分钟The Economist George Eze is a psychiatrist in Sierra Leone.
of his television set in the house.
And then you now want to bring her out.
The process had lacerations.
And then, of course, that was the psychotic behaviour.
He's describing the impact of a terrifying new drug that's sweeping across West Africa.
The second patient is one that's suddenly started seeing pieces of paper on the road as money.
And then he came to the road, desperate, heavy traffic.
I started picking the pieces of pepper until they apprehended him and they took him to the hospital.
My colleague Orei Ugenbi recently told The Intelligence,
our daily podcast, all about this drug known as kush.
Everyone I met in Freetown knew at least one person who was battling addiction.
It's people in the streets who are battling psychosis, delirium and also agitation.
It suppresses your appetite.
Your limbs are swollen, you're at a higher risk of having STDs,
which is compounded by the fact that lots of people who are battling Kush addictions are selling sex to get more Kush.
It's estimated that every week,
Kush kills around a dozen people in Sierra Leone, where Ore was reporting from.
It's killing so many people that the mayor of Freetown has had to set up a dedicated burial team to pick up abandoned bodies in the streets.
One estimate reckons that Kush has killed thousands across West Africa.