Youth of Lungi, Kaffu Bullom is among chiefdoms heavily affected by kush in Port Loko district, North West Region of Sierra Leone.

According to Suliaman Bangura of Friends’ Ataya Base, Rotinfunk many youth have resorted to stealing as a result of kush addiction.

Before now, many families used to abandon their belongings outside their compounds, but currently, he continued, it is no longer the case as fervent kush partakers are in the habit of roaming compounds at odd hours at night looking for things that they can steal to sell just to secure money to purchase the country’s killer drug, “kush”, he recalled.

Kush addicts are gradually losing their composure, thereby making the future of the nation unpredictable for the future of the current generation remains uncertain, Suliaman told Forum News, and observed that kush also has an effect on the education of many so male pupils at junior and senior secondary schools levels in the chiefdom and its environs.

The tea – ataya seller said pupils have lost the urge and ambitions for studying and making research on relevant subject areas due kush high influence affecting especially male pupils leading them to dropping out of school.

Bangura said what stands worrisome is the rapid in increase female in youth also entering the habit of smoking kush.

Another community elder, Ben Kanu, senior teacher, United Breathed Academy (UBA), Lungi expressed similar sentiments in a snap interview with Forum News SL. He revealed that the future seems uncertain for the present schooling population not only in Lungi but the country as a whole. “Kush has graduated from the ghettoes and it is spreading its fabrics into junior and senior secondary schools in the chiefdom”, teacher Ben Kanu also observer with serious concerns, and furthered that the number of pupils accessing public exams is increasing every academic year but the clear passes from those exams are discouraging, which he said implies that in the future there will be more square pegs in round holds.

The Universities, he continued admit students without the standard entry requirements such as educational foundation to access universities which are also clear indications that most of them finds it extremely difficult to withstand the pressure that accompany university education. 

He continued that it will surprise many to know that boys have started taking the drug to school and during launch male pupils are in the habits of smoking the drug and deploy themselves in units in nearby bushes within and round the school environs.

He called on the government and Civil Society Organizations on drug to pay much attention to the district as the current trend has reached a challenging peak that warrant it to be urgently addressed.

N’balu Yansaneh, a local restaurant operator at New Air Port Road, said many youth have taken upon themselves to be treading on dangerous grounds. “I petty we mothers that gave birth to male child, before now, male child were regarded as a family asset and as a result premium was given to them unlike the girl child that is now largely seen as a family liability”, he noted, pointing out that “With the current trend that kush is aggressively dragging our male children, it will be good for all parents to turn attentions to their daughters for better future.

The future of our sons in Lungi are questionable as many of them now behave disrespectfully to their parents and have choose staling and kush smoking as a new way of life.

Section Chief at Father Street, Kombolo Kamawany, Lungi, attributed the huge number of youth who have chosen the path of drug addiction to the world nearing the end time.

During our days, the traditional leader recalled that their children accepted to go through parenting in order for them becoming responsible and useful citizens, but noted that with the current generation it is a complete reverse.

“As an old woman, am still learning about the drug kush, that is, it origin and the superman behind it” chief Kombolo Kamawany said.

She said she can’t deny the fact that the drug is a bad because she see many youth in the township in isolated corners in a dangling motions during and after its intake. “I sometime ponder what kind of satisfaction our youth derive from smoking a drug that disfigures them physically” the traditional leader disclosed.

She pleaded with the government to do the needful to eradicate kush out of the country to prevent youth roaming the streets singing mad songs.

The future of youth not only in the Kaffu Bullom Chiefdom, but in other parts of the country remain seriously shaky, it the few dropping centres for drug addict in the country, it will be prudent for the government, international donor partners to considering financing the construction of more dropping centres that will accommodate the percentage of youths that has graduated to addiction.