Synthetic drugs are having devastating effects around the world, from Sierra Leone to the UK

Synthetic drugs are having devastating effects around the world, from Sierra Leone to the UK

In the blistering heat of Freetown, Sierra Leone, young men gather on street corners, their limbs swollen, eyes glazed. They are the victims of kush, a cheap and deadly synthetic drug sweeping the country. But kush is not an isolated tragedy. From the townships of apartheid South Africa to the 21st-century streets of the UK, synthetic drugs have a long history of flourishing in places where society has abandoned its most vulnerable. Kush first a…