Liberia’s kush crisis: The hidden trade behind a generation at risk

Monrovia, Liberia – On the streets of Liberia’s capital, the signs of the kush crisis are increasingly hard to miss. Young people gather in neighbourhoods where families say addiction has pulled children away from school, their homes and their communities. Kush, a cheap and highly addictive synthetic street drug, has spread across parts of West Africa and become one of Liberia’s most urgent public concerns.First reported in neighbouring Sierra Leone, it has since spread into Liberia, where parents say they have watched young people slip into addiction and struggle to return to everyday life.For Miata Paye, the crisis is not a statistic. It is her son.Paye told Al Jazeera that her son was in the 10th grade in 2018 when he first encountered kush. Twice, she paid for rehabilitation, $80 and a 25kg (55-pound) bag of rice each time, money and food supplies her family could barely afford.She hoped each treatment would help him recover, but after both attempts he returned to the roadside.“This thing is killing our children,” she said. “My heart is bleeding.”Liberia declared drug abuse a public health emergency in 2024, but for families like Paye’s, the emergency has long been personal.You...