APC 2028 presidential aspirant Dr. Ibrahim Bangura has made a passionate call for immediate national action in the face of an escalating kush crisis that is now consuming thousands of young people across the country.
In an emotional reflection titled “Kush Is Killing Our Future: How Sierra Leone’s Youth Are Being Consumed And What We Must Do Now,” Dr. Bangura describes the distressing scenes he witnesses daily — young men and women slumped lifelessly along the streets of Freetown, trapped by a drug that is “cheap, unpredictable, and deadly.”
“This is more than addiction,” Dr. Bangura wrote. “It is social disintegration. When the drug becomes cheaper than a pack of chewing gum, it becomes the escape of choice for those who see no hope — unemployed, traumatized, ignored.”
Dr. Bangura stressed that law enforcement cannot solve the problem on its own and called for the government to couple enforcement with compassion and real public health solutions. He outlined a 90-day action plan to build affordable rehabilitation centres, upgrade forensic labs, create youth job programmes, and launch a nationwide awareness campaign to de-stigmatize addiction.
He called for the establishment of three pilot rehabilitation centres in Freetown, Bo, and Makeni, subsidized for the poor and staffed with trained professionals. “We must treat, not just arrest,” he stressed.
As the country grapples with a growing wave of kush-related deaths, hospitalizations, and community unrest, Dr. Bangura’s message is clear: Sierra Leone cannot afford to wait.
“Our youths are not just statistics,” he concluded, “they’re names, dreams, hopes. When we save one, we send a tremor through a family, a community, a generation. Let’s start today.”