Liberia’s kush crisis: The hidden trade behind a generation at risk
As kush spreads across Liberia, families face the fallout while traffickers remain largely out of reach. Monrovia, Liberia – On the streets of Liberia’s capital
As kush spreads across Liberia, families face the fallout while traffickers remain largely out of reach. 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. Young lives disrupted Paye’s experience reflects what many families across Liberia are facing as kush spreads among young people. Some have left school and ended up living on the streets, where they are often known locally as zogos. Abraham Jackson is among them. He has smoked kush since he was 16.
Now 26, he never completed 10th grade. Jackson told Al Jazeera that after his mother died, his father disowned him, leaving him without the support he depended on. “Since my mother died, my father disowned me,” he said. “Nobody would pay attention to me.” His story shows how addiction can deepen poverty, family breakdown and homelessness, making recovery far harder. For families trying to help relatives recover, treatment options remain limited. Liberia’s government rehabilitation centre in Bentol City, about 30km (19 miles) from Monrovia, remains unfinished. Many families are left to seek help from private facilities, some of which doctors say operate without trained staff or proper oversight. The hidden business behind the street crisis While families grapple with the visible consequences of kush, authorities have uncovered evidence of a much larger narcotics trade operating through Liberia. Figures obtained by Al Jazeera from the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) show that between September 2025 and 22 June 2026, the agency arrested 1,167 people on allegations of drug trafficking. During the same period, Liberian courts recorded only eight convictions, about one conviction for every 146 arrests. The figures suggest a criminal justice system that arrests suspected traffickers far more often than it secures convictions, raising questions about whether enforcement efforts are reaching those who organise and finance the trade or mainly those caught at the lowest levels. The scale of the trafficking networks operating through Liberia became clearer through two major cocaine seizures. On June 8, security officers at Roberts International Airport in Harbel, Margibi County, about 55km (34 miles) southeast of Monrovia, opened six cargo boxes declared as food seasoning and textiles.
The BriefWire