Africa-Press – Liberia. Families across Liberia are draining their savings on unregulated rehab centers as the country’s drug crisis worsens.
Government pledges $US3.5 million for a range of recovery efforts but no government rehabilitation facility has been established 18 months into President Boakai’s term.
Experts warn unqualified centers risk abuse and failure, leaving families in despair as addiction rates among youth continue to climb.
NEW JERUSALEM, Montserrado- When R. saw her son emerge drug-free after five months in a rehabilitation center in 2022, she thought her long nightmare had ended.
The beauty salon owner had drained her savings—over $LD50,000 ($US270) to pay for the 33-year-old’s treatment at three centers over the four years before that. Each time he failed to shake the addiction. After his fourth center, the Fellowship of the Cross, located on the Monrovia–Bomi highway, he finally got clean. Or so it seemed.
“He was just fine. Very, very perfect and I was happy about it,” she said. For the single mother, whose husband was killed during the civil war while she was pregnant with what would be her only child, the moment felt like a rebirth. (FPA is concealing all names because of stigma.)
But the joy was short-lived. Within weeks, her son relapsed.
“I feel very bad. I’m frustrated,” R. said, holding back tears. “You know what it means to suffer on a child from day one? Nobody to help and then he’s in the street.”
But experts say she likely wasting her money the whole time. Drug addiction is more than just a bad habit—it is a disease that rewires the human brain. When a person repeatedly uses drugs, chemicals take over the brain’s reward system, flooding it with a pleasure hormone known as dopamine and tricking the body into craving more. Over time, the brain stops making enough of its own natural chemicals, leaving the person unable to feel normal without the drug.
This cycle pulls people deeper into dependence, where they no longer use just to feel good, but to avoid the painful sickness of withdrawal. The damage does not stop in the brain. Drugs weaken the heart, liver, lungs, and immune system, leaving users vulnerable to strokes, infections, and early death.
Experts say addiction is not about willpower—it is a chronic illness that traps the body in a dangerous spiral, requiring treatment, support, and compassion to break free.
Even in the best settings in the United States as many as 60 percent of addicts relapse after an initial treatment. A Harvard Medical School study found that 75 per cent eventually recover though it often takes multiple attempts.
Experts say all signs are that the number of addicts in Liberia is growing since a U.N. report in 2022 estimates one in every five Liberian youth – under the age of 35 – is abusing drugs including a synthetic mix known as “kush”, opioids and cocaine. Despite the Boakai administration declaring the crisis a public health emergency and committing more than $3.5 million to various projects over two years there is still not one accredited government clinic in the country.
Instead, desperate families are draining their savings to a patchwork of untrained centers – some run by former warlords – where conditions are often abusive and results elusive.
“In Liberia, with untrained people running these places, the chances of recovery are almost zero,” according to James Koryor, executive director of Global Action for Sustainable Development.
Medical experts warn the centers are not only ineffective, but dangerous and need to be shut down.
“Ensure these facilities do not operate and do not accept clients because they have not met the requisite requirements,” urged Dr. Benjamin Harris, a psychiatrist at John F. Kennedy Medical Center and professor at the University of Liberia who also teaches clinical psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Without trained psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, Harris argues, most facilities have little hope of helping addicts. “Without standardized practices, rehabilitation becomes a risk, not a solution.”
Desperate Families Drain Savings on Programs That Will Never Work
R. has learned the truth about the centers the hard way. At 19, fresh out of school and enrolled at YMCA to study computers, her son fell into drugs under the influence of friends.
E. S. Grant Mental Health Hospital in Du-port Road, where some families take their addicted relatives for treatment
Over the years he has stolen everything from her – phones, jewelry, and cash – to pay for the drugs. R. says she often found herself caught between fear and desperation as her son spiraled out of control. Neighbors threatened to press charges after he stole from them, and each time, she scrambled to protect him from Monrovia Central Prison – a place she described as full of “bad, bad things” that only destroy young men. “I had to scream, to do anything just to find the money and pay them.”
“I had big dreams. My expectation was high. That’s why I labored throughout,” she says, determined that he would be strong even though his father was dead. “But now, I only depend on God to help me. He is the only family I have.”
B., another single mother of an addict, says her son began using drugs at 16 after joining a neighborhood dance group. In the three years since the 42-year-old says she has spent $US 2,000 at two rehab centers. At the Journey Against Violence center in Mount Barclay, Johnsonville run by Joshua Milton Blahyi, the once feared warlord “General Butt Naked”, she says she paid $US1,000. But her son continued to find drugs inside. When he relapsed, she was devastated.
“I didn’t even know what to do. It was just heartbreaking.”
Government Steps Up Efforts After Public Outcry
B. pleads for the government to help her save her son from addiction.
In recent weeks, after a range of vigilante attacks on dealers and a large public protest, the government has moved closer to providing rehabilitation.
It established a pilot project in a formal partnership with the Mother of Light center to learn what works before they expand to more centers across the country.
According to Dr. Moses Ziah, director of Mental Health at the Ministry of Health and chair of the government’s technical working group on drug abuse, the government has begun converting the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission’s compound in Johnsonville, Montserrado County into a center which is currently housing 120 addicts.
Dr. Ziah says the partnership will eventually extend to other institutions once they are accredited by the Ministry of Health. He says the government is working alongside the Liberia Medical and Dental Council and other regulatory bodies to begin accrediting facilities within a few weeks.
“We have trained close to 200 people who know the science of addiction,” he says.
A Thin Line Between Treatment and Abuse
The government has not acted on experts calls to shut the amateur centers down and families are still falling prey. A report by NN/FPA uncovered troubling practices inside Liberia’s mushrooming rehab industry.
At Blahyi’s Mount Barclay center, a June visit found new patients locked behind a chained door resembling a prison cell during withdrawal. Blahyi claims his program has treated more than 700 addicts since 2007 and boasts an 84 percent success rate but provided no evidence for this claim. The center charges each addict up to $US1,700 for six months, and $US3,740 over the full 18-month rehabilitation process.
In a telephone interview, Blahyi acknowledged that there were instances when patients were caught with narcotics. “Sometimes they called their families or relatives to bring drugs for them,” he says and insists the center has a strict “zero tolerance” policy on drugs.
He conceded the center had imposed punishments on patients accused of dealing drugs, stealing, or attempting to escape. But said the ministry of health intervened early last year, ending those practices.
Joshua Milton Blahyi points to new intake at his center in June.
Social workers say conditions at unqualified facilities are often abusive. “If a patient is craving, they are sometimes beaten,” said Spencer C. Moore, a social worker at JFK’s ES Grant Mental Hospital for the last four years. “When patients come out, they are still the same.”
“My Child Is in the Street With My Heart”
For H. the crisis has left scars too deep to heal. The 46-year-old adopted her son from Nimba at age two and raised him with the hope he would have a better life. But at 17, he began sleeping in graveyards, stealing, and using drugs. He has stolen thousands of dollars in cash and items from her.
She paid $US140 for a year at a religious center she declined to name. With nearly 100 patients sharing one bathroom she says the conditions were appalling. But a brief moment of hope followed. He graduated from high school and began preaching about Jesus at home. The family entrusted him with a small business but he soon used the money to deal drugs and relapsed.
Addiction escalated into violence. Her son’s friends threatened her life. Some killed her guard dog. They stole from the community. Neighbors turned against her, accusing her of harboring a criminal.
A second rehab stint costing $US200 ended when her son stole from the rehab owner himself. She was later forced to pay $1,600 in court fees after he was caught along with others stealing and dealing drugs.
H. is exhausted. “It’s been over 10 or 15 times that this boy has cleared my house, taken all the computers from the office. My child is in the street with my heart,” she says, tears rolling down her cheeks.
The Center for Rehabilitation and Reintegration, founded by Montserrado County Senator Abraham Darius Dillon, is one of many rehab centers in Monrovia.
Experts Warn Rehab Is Only Half of the Fight
Experts warn that even if Liberia builds proper rehab centers, the fight will be futile unless drug trafficking is tackled. The government has increased the number of drug enforcement officials, tightened border security and made a series of drug busts. But experts say the failure of the Weah administration to take a tough stance has given the dealers a head start, allowing them to buy accomplices throughout law enforcement and government. The Boakai administration has a big fight ahead.
“As long as illicit substances continue flooding the country, you will have individuals experimenting and becoming addicted,” Dr. Harris warns.
Meanwhile families are desperate to see results. The three mothers interviewed in this story say the nights are long, their savings are gone, and their hope is fading.
“There are a lot of parents out there crying like me,” says H.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
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