Documentary by Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen In the heart of Ghana’s bustling towns and quiet villages, a silent crisis unfolds. Hidden beneath the laughter, ambition, and dreams of the youth, a menace grows, one that threatens not only their futures but the very soul of communities. This is the story of how drug abuse is quietly ravaging the lives of young people, pulling them into a spiral of addiction and despair before their dreams can ever take flight. Felix was once like any other young man, full of hope, with a family that cherished him and a classroom that held the promise of a better future. But somewhere along the way, his path darkened. Drugs became his companion, and soon, he found himself wandering the streets, trading textbooks for a haze of addiction. He remembers the day it all started. “When I was in JHS3, it was when I travelled to Kumasi. That’s when I started taking it,” Felix recalls, his voice heavy with regret. “I came home, then went to school. So, that’s how I entered the job.” The “work,” as Felix calls it, is hard labor, carrying goods for others, hustling for daily survival. “If I don’t take it, I cannot work,” he admits. The drugs numb the pain, but they also sever him from his family. “Right now, I’m not close with them,” he says quietly, the weight of isolation evident in his voice. His family knows about his addiction, but not the full extent of his trauma. “Maybe they don’t know, but I don’t know if they know or not,” he confides. For Felix, every day is a battle; he needs work, but work means drugs, and drugs mean distance from those he loves. His story is one of many, a haunting echo of how quickly and quietly hope can slip away. Known to many as Hunu, he is a father, a son, and a man bearing the weight of choices he never meant to make. His story is marked by the invisible hand of peer pressure and the desperate search for belonging. “Actually, there’s a challenge. A big challenge,” Hunu admits. “I’m a student, alright. However, I cannot simply tell you that this is what happened when I entered into this. It’s all about the friends you follow. Your influence.” He speaks of how easy it is to fall in. “Someone will be there, he will not like to take it, but the moment he follows two or three people who take it, he will like to try it.” The drugs become a necessity, “The moment I wake up, I don’t take it, I will not feel alright. Not that I am sick, but I am not normal. But the moment I take it, I will get to my normal stage.” Hunu’s reflection is a stark reminder of how easily youth can be led astray, not always by malice, but by the natural desire to fit in, to be part of something, even if it leads down a dark path. At just 19, Aduko Jacqueline is already a mother of two. Her life, once filled with dreams, is now a daily struggle against addiction. She is honest about her pain, the stigma, and the longing for rescue. “If I get what I want, there will be damn smoking,” she says, her words tinged with sadness. “I’m not supposed to smoke, I’m a girl, but if I always smoke, I always stink very well. I don’t have the money to do what I want, but if I get it, I will do it. I will stop smoking.” Jacqueline’s self-awareness is heartbreaking. “As I’m sitting here, I always stink. If you only see me sitting now, without talking to anybody, I’m thinking about how to stop it. But if I don’t, it will enter me, you understand. So, unless I get someone to help me, someone behind me, so that the person will be helping me, I will increase myself so that I will stop everything and be free.” Her plea is simple: help. “I’m praying that maybe God will help me, then I will find a job.” Jacqueline’s story is a cry for support, a call to action for communities to rally around those who are struggling before they are lost. Baba, known in the ghetto as Starboy, is in his twenties but has already lived a lifetime in the shadows of addiction. His drug of choice is weed, and for him, it is not just a habit; it is a lifeline. “Weed is my life. And weed is the one that can help me with everything that I need in my life,” he shares. “If I smoke this weed… It’s really good for me. If I think of doing something bad, when I take the weed, I swear to God, I always think it’s good.” Baba’s family has long known of his addiction. “I’ve only let them understand that I’m a weed smoker. And the weeds are killing me, what I have, but what I feel happy about. Because if I smoke the weed, I feel so great.” He started young, just ten years old. Now, he says, “It gives me a lot of health. It gives me a lot of pressure, a lot of things that I can’t handle myself very well.” For Baba, the addiction is both a curse and a comfort, a chain he cannot break but one that gives him a fleeting sense of control in a world that often feels overwhelming. For Emmanuel, addiction is not just a personal battle; it is a family affair. “Well, I choose to smoke this because I can just say that it’s inside the blood of the family,” he says. “Your dad takes some. My uncle takes some. I’ve seen that taking this is normal to me.” He is a young man who should be in school or working, but instead finds himself fighting an enemy that feels almost inherited. “The smoke of the
