Sierra Leone: Drug abuse accounts for 80% of institutionalised mental cases – expert

Sierra Leone: Drug abuse accounts for 80% of institutionalised mental cases – expert

By Kemo Cham

APA-Freetown (Sierra Leone)

Drug abuse is the leading cause of mental illness in Sierra Leone where it accounts for 80 percent of cases in the country’s mental health hospital, an expert has said.

Dr Edward Nahim, the country’s leading expert in mental health, said cannabis, heroin (locally called brown brown), and cocaine were the top drugs under abuse, especially among youths who constitutes majority of the mental health cases.

Dr Nahim, a retired practitioner, who serves as a consultant psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health, also cited a less talked about cause of mental, the China Green Tea. Called locally Attaya, the Green Tea is not illegal according to Sierra Leonean laws, unlike the others mentioned above. But Dr Nahim said the tea, which is

popular among youths, has a lot of caffeine which makes its users feel happy and high susceptible to addition.

“Those who abuse these drugs are the young people of age 14 to 50. And the population of these in Sierra Leone is about one million. That is a serious problem,” Nahim said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

Sierra Leone has been struggling to contain an epidemic of drug. But attention has mostly been on the pain killer tramadol. The prescription drug has been the subject of abuse among particular Okada (commercial motor bike) riders and has been blamed for a spike in crime rate in the country.

According to health officials, usually two tablets of the medication is advice as a dose, taken at any given time. But those who abuse it have been known to consume between 10 and 20 tablets at one go.

“It makes them feel good,” says Dr Nahim. “When you take high dose you feel fine. But if you do you must continue.”

Nahim said whenever the drug’s effect reduces in an addict’s system, it results to ‘withdrawal symptom’, which manifests in vomiting and a situation akin to epilepsy, an abnormal brain condition.

Besides mental illness, drug abusers are also susceptible to problems like heart attack, liver diseases, sleeplessness, eye defects, etc, said Dr Nahim.

The country’s drug enforcement agency complains of underfunding, among other challenges, which it says have rendered it ineffective.

Last week reports cited officials at the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone suggesting plans to replace tramadol with opium as replacement drug in the hospitals. That move was out rightly criticized by Dr Nahim who argued that it’s hardly the solution.