Drugs Are Stealing Our Future — We Must Rise Now

Drugs Are Stealing Our Future — We Must Rise Now

By Zainab Tunkara Clarkson (AKA Zee)

Yesterday, the Truth Media Radio Team, led by Amadu Lamrana Bah, sounded an urgent alarm — a cry that should echo across Sierra Leone. Our schools, the very places meant to nurture dreams, are becoming battlegrounds in the fight against drugs. Kush, tramadol, marijuana — these poisons are destroying our children, our classrooms, and our nation’s future.

Last week, even President Maada Bio highlighted the growing challenge of drug abuse among our youth.

We cannot pretend we don’t see it. Walk through any street in Freetown, Bo, Kabala, Falaba, Kenema, or Makeni, and you will find teenagers slumped on sidewalks, their eyes blank, their potential fading away. Some of them still wear school uniforms. These are our sons and daughters — the same children we once celebrated for passing the NPSE or BECE — now slipping away before our eyes.

We are losing a generation — not to war this time, but to neglect.

For too long, drug abuse has been treated as someone else’s problem. Parents blame schools. Schools blame the government. Government blames “the system.” Meanwhile, the dealers keep selling, and our children keep dying — slowly, quietly, tragically.

This must stop.

We need action, not speeches. We need communities that protect, not condemn. We need schools that teach more than math and grammar — schools that teach values, resilience, and hope. We need the Ministry of Education, the NDLEA, and the Sierra Leone Police to crack down hard on those who profit from poisoning our youth.

But most of all, we need to look in the mirror. Every parent, teacher, imam, pastor, politician — every Sierra Leonean — has a role to play. If we don’t act now, we will wake up one day to find the promise of our nation has gone up in smoke.

Our young people are crying out for guidance, opportunity, and something to believe in. Let us not fail them again. Let this be the moment we rise — together — to reclaim our schools, our streets, and our future.

This problem demands a united response. The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, and the Sierra Leone Police must strengthen collaboration to clamp down on the supply and distribution of these substances. Schools should integrate counseling and mentorship programs to help students resist peer pressure and make better life choices.

Parents must step up too. Home is the first school, and love, guidance, and discipline must begin there. Communities should reclaim their role as moral guardians — because no policy or law will succeed if the community remains indifferent.

We cannot afford to lose another generation — not to drugs, not to neglect, not to silence. The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Sierra Leone’s tomorrow depends on the choices we make today.