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SocietyLiberia

Liberia's kush epidemic

28:54

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Jan Falco Thomsen
May 11, 2026

Liberia is grappling with an unprecedented drug epidemic. Many young people are turning to kush — known by locals as the drug of the living dead. The "zogos," or people living with addiction, are treated as outsiders.

The West African nation was devastated by two civil wars between 1989 and 2003. The result: More than 250,000 dead, thousands of child soldiers and unanswered war crimes. Trauma still plays a major role in society. Many young people try to forget by taking kush. Now, an estimated one in every four young Liberians is addicted to the substance. Kush is asynthetic drug made of a blend of solvents, opioids and artificial cannabinoids, which can be bought for just a few cents. People who use the drug find shelter in the final resting place of the civil war dead — the cemeteries scattered throughout the country's capital, Monrovia. This report takes viewers to a country where more than half the population lives below the poverty line, highlighting the hopelessness of a young generation scarred by the effects of war and drugs.But there's hope: a man who believes, despite all the problems, that it's still possible to save one person at a time.

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