Continuous cry by many Liberians mainly parents and community residents over proliferation of dangerous substances in the country that are killing many young people across Liberia appear to be falling on deaf ears with authorities here doing very little, if anything at all, to mitigate the problem.
Liberia is being saturated with narcotics, including marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and ‘Kush’ that are consumed mainly by youth. Among these tranquilizers, ‘Kush’ is said to be the most deadly of all with reports of death occurring nearly every other day in one community or another, leaving helpless parents wailing over the loss of a child.
The drug situation has intensified under the current administration which has witnessed the separate importation of cocaine valued as high as US$100 million and nearly $50 million respectively.
Kush, the most deadly, is reportedly imported from neighboring Sierra Leone. It is being sold in ghettos across Liberia with state security apparatus, mainly the Liberia Drugs Enforcement Agency (LDEA) lacking the capacity to quickly apprehend dealers.
Suspects behind two separate consignments of cocaine busted at the Freeport of Monrovia last year, who were arrested and charged by police, were released by Criminal Court ‘E’ recently after jurors handed down a not guilty verdict.
But the ruling by the court and subsequent release of the suspects, all of them foreign nationals, including a Lebanese, was received by the public with disappointment. Even the Embassy of the United States in Monrovia which alerted Liberian authorities which led to the arrest, expressed reservation on the release of the suspects.
Notwithstanding, the drug trade continues to boom across the country, as smugglers exploit Liberia’s porous borders, and are in some instances, assisted by deviant immigration officers.
The government at the highest level has remained conspicuously silent over the drug situation in the country, leaving many to wonder whether it is complacency.
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Community residents continue to cry for government’s intervention, as they lose children to peddlers operating ghettos across Monrovia.
President George Weah announced an ambitious program last year to rehabilitate drug-addicted youth that the government brands as “At-risk youth.” The President also announced an estimated budget of US$13 million to construct a rehabilitation center for “At-risk youth” and received commitments from partners.
But if recent disclosure by the Minister of Youth and Sports D. Zogar Wilson, is anything to go by, then government’s pronouncement is nothing but mere lip service to fighting drugs that are destroying Liberia’s next generation, because the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, according to Minister Wilson, has not released a dime for this much-publicized rehabilitation program. We wonder how many Liberian youths should lose their lives before the drug issue can be treated as a national emergency.
