The National Council for Civic Education and Democracy (NaCCED) has commenced a community outreach engagement and public campaign against the sale and use of ‘Kush’ and other harmful substances, especially among young people in the country.
Several international and local news stories, community and national concerns have, in recent times, shed light on the proliferating use of an illegal and highly addictive synthetic cannabinoid product called “Kush”; which gets its users into a “zombie like and sleepy state.” It was initially believed to be an imported substance, but many people now say it is manufactured locally, which has intensified concerns by mental health professionals and other advocacy groups.
In line with its mandate, NaCCED believes that engaging and informing communities about the potential harms to young people, their families, communities, and the country as a whole, is an essential step to curbing the menace of this highly addictive and harmful substance.
It is to that effect that the institution has designed public education and outreach program on the rights, responsibilities and obligations of citizens to themselves and the state, community mobilization, development communication and knowledge management for sustainable national development. This therefore warrants the institution to step in fully to join other voices on the issues of harmful drug use, abuse and misuse.
The community outreach against kush and other harmful drugs according to the Director of Programmes and Research Mr. Thomas Johnny is a direct response to the current alarming state of the use of drugs among young people who are considered the economic workforce for national development. “We became concerned and thought it fit that our civic education and outreach endeavors should target this situation, so that these youths will be reminded that their obligation to the state is to contribute to its development agenda and programmes, which requires them to be mentally and physically fit”, he noted.
He continued that the outreach which is also a wake-up call to communities to “safeguard the youth who are the present and the future.” “The communities should be concerned as well as ensure that the youths are guided to be good citizens as they are the drivers of national development”.
The community outreach which involves the use of mobile vehicles and the continuous airing of public service announcement jingles against the sale and use of kush and other drugs, is carried out by a team led by NaCCED’s Communications and Outreach department and the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. The outreach currently targets communities in the Western Urban and Rural areas of Freetown, such as Murray Town, Aberdeen, Lumley, Funkia, Adonkia, Ogoo Farm, Mambo, Baw Baw, Number 2 River, Waterloo, and Jui axis, and Magazine, Bombay and Patton street and East End Police, Kissy, Wellington, Calaba Town communities, among others.
The Director of Porgrammes and Outreach said the community outreach engagement strategy will go a long way to reinforce the message on the dangers of selling and using drugs as well as raise awareness around collective solution. “We have embarked on this cause to get the public understand that drug sale and use is now a crisis and we should all come onboard to take individual and community actions to solve this problem,” he said.
On the future plans of the Council, Mr. Johnny stated that NaCCED is currently developing a national plan and concept that will target young people, communities, law enforcers and institutions dealing with this crisis, to mitigate the sale, use and abuse. “The proliferation of kush and other harmful substances is not an individual crisis or just an issue to be solved by only law enforcers. Rather, tackling it requires a multi-stakeholder approach involving: community stakeholders ensuring that they keep their communities safe, the youth taking responsibility of their future, the law enforcement agencies effectively carrying out their mandate, and ordinary citizens taking the campaign to their communities to curb the sale and use of drugs, among a host of other actions”, he ended.

