Highly potent opioids are showing up in drug users in Africa for the first time, report says

By CHINEDU ASADU
Associated Press

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A new report has for the first time found traces of highly potent opioids known as nitazenes in drugs consumed in Africa’s retail drug market. The report released on Wednesday by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime nonprofit tested kush, a derivative of cannabis mixed with synthetic drugs and chemicals in Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. Many young people in West and Central Africa have become addicted to drugs with between 5.2% and 13.5% of them using cannabis, the most widely used illicit substance on the continent, according to the World Health Organization. The report called for broad and urgent chemical testing as a first step to tackle the abuse.