France, June 29 -- A cheap synthetic drug known as kush is ravaging West Africa and its epicentre is Sierra Leone. The government has declared kush a public health emergency, but poverty and trauma are slowing efforts by communities to help unhook young people from its sometimes deadly hold.
At 20, Ousmane's future should be unfolding. Instead, he spends his days at a drug point in Grey Bush - a ghetto in the capital Freetown - hunting for money for his next dose of kush.
"This drug, honestly, it makes me angry at my country," he tells RFI. "Look at how it destroys young people like us. It makes us eat rotten food. A young person like me, in another country, I'd already have a car and a roof. But here, I'm just running around, looking for...