Zombie Drug Rumored To Contain Human Bones Killing a Dozen Every Week

A deadly new drug is spreading across countries in West Africa, wreaking havoc in local communities.

The drug, known as "kush," causes users to walk around like zombies, falling over and injuring themselves as they fall asleep on foot, with a dozen dying every week and thousands being hospitalized.

The drug is mostly taken by men aged between 18 and 25 and is worst affecting the country of Sierra Leone, according to a Conversation article by Michael Cole, a professor of forensic science at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK.

Kush—unlike the drug of the same name in the U.S.—is a mixture of several substances, including cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, and even the preservative formaldehyde. Some have claimed that the drug contains ground-up human bones, though experts think this is likely only a rumor.

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, around 1 million people in the region are though to be addicted to the deadly new substance.

"Kush in Africa is a drug that contains a mixture of chemicals including tramadol (a synthetic opiate), cannabis, fentanyl and sometimes formaldehyde. It has become popular as it is affordable and widely available, both factors that drive drug use in any country," Ian Hamilton, an associate professor of addiction at the University of York in the U.K., told Newsweek.

"Underpinning its popularity are some social factors such as high unemployment, poverty and lack of hope. Kush appears to have arrived at the right time to help those using it numb out the adverse social conditions they experience."

Fentanyl and tramadol are both highly addictive opiates, and formaldehyde, which is used to embalm dead bodies, can cause hallucinations when consumed. Due to the mixed nature of kush, the proportions and concentrations of each of the substances are hard to control, and therefore the drug can lead to very different reactions between individuals.

"If kush mixtures really do contain synthetic opioids, then the risk to health are clear. These are the drugs that have led to so many deaths in North America and are of increasing concern in Europe," Harry Sumnall, a professor in substance use at Liverpool John Moores University, told Newsweek.

"Drug mixtures are particularly harmful and increase the risks of fatal overdose. As with all illicit drugs, there is no 'quality control' and diverse local markets mean that contents are likely to differ from batch to batch, increasing the risk of overdose," he said.

"These risks are also compounded by the scarcity of harm reduction and drug treatment services in communities where kush is available.

"Contents could vary between batches and geographies—kush in one area could be very different to kush in another. We often see this with drugs—'monkey dust' in the U.K. and 'bath salts' in the U.S. have been used as generic terms for a range of synthetic stimulant drugs," Sumnall said.

As for the drug containing human bones, experts think this is very unlikely, as there is no evidence to support the claims.

"I am highly skeptical about the idea that human bones are used to make kush as there is nothing in human bones that would be intoxicating even if they belonged to individuals who had used drugs like kush," Hamilton said. "I suspect this has been started as a rumor that has spread widely without any evidence to support it."

There would be no real benefit to including the bones in the drug mix. Bones do contain sulfur, which may form toxic sulfur dioxide when burned, but there is not enough present to cause any real effect on the body.

"The rumor of bones is reminiscent of fearmongering tactics used by police or other agencies in the United States to induce a moral panic and deter individuals from drug use," Samuel Tobias, a Ph.D. student in public health at the University of British Columbia, told Newsweek.

"We have seen this same approach with the recent trend of xylazine in the United States—its description of being a "zombie drug". Rumors such as these can be pervasive and can also originate from the community itself.

"An example of this is when Vancouver saw an outbreak of fentanyl that was causing hallucinations when consumed," he said. "People who used it thought it was 'moldy' and that the mold was causing these 'trips.'

"In fact, the fentanyl was cut with synthetic cannabinoids, a lab-produced relative of the active compounds in cannabis. The only way to know for sure what is mixed into drugs is to have them analyzed."

The drug is found across Sierra Leone, as well as in the neighboring countries of Guinea and Liberia. The Conversation article reports that each joint of the drug costs about 25 cents, of which two or three people may share 40 every day, and as the average annual salary in Sierra Leone is only around $630, the drug can eat up a huge proportion of people's money.

All the drugs present in kush are also available in the U.S., however, it is unlikely that the drug will make its way across the Atlantic.

"There would have to be a viable economic case for dealers to manufacture kush and distribute the drug effectively," Hamilton explained. "I think it is unlikely this will happen as there is currently sufficient penetration with drugs like synthetic opiates and cannabis. Kush would have to be significantly cheaper for dealers to make the switch, which I don't think it would be.

"Kush is mainly being supplied and used in West African countries like Sierra Leone, in part due to the ability of dealers to manufacture the drug within the country rather than all the risks and costs of importing a drug."

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