A new craze for a drug derived from crushed vehicle exhaust filters is rattling authorities in Kinshasa, triggering a campaign to stamp out the concoction and a related rash of auto part thefts.
Police last month rounded up and paraded nearly 100 alleged dealers and users of the drug bombe, which means “powerful” in the local Lingala language, following a call to action by Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi.
“This social phenomenon calls for collective responsibility by the whole nation,” Tshisekedi told ministers at a weekly meeting.
In an abandoned shack in a suburb of Kinshasa a young man seeking oblivion slits open a bag of brown powder, blending it with a couple of crushed pills using the back of a spoon, before snorting the bombe mixture with his friends.
Within minutes the trio are swaying slowly, scratching themselves in a catatonic state that experts say can cause users to stand motionless for hours, or sleep for days.
“We used to drink very strong whiskey ... we were restless and we would hurt people, but with bombe, it calms you down, you get tired, you stay somewhere standing up or sitting down for a very long time. When you’re done, you go home without bothering anyone,” said Cedrick, a 26-year-old gang leader in a white designer shirt.
Vehicle owners, police and drug experts are not so sanguine.
The brown powder is obtained from crushing the ceramic honeycomb core of automotive catalytic converters, the device that cuts the emission of toxic gases in vehicle exhaust pipes.
Mechanics blame rising demand for the drug for a rash of thefts of catalytic converters, which are coated with metals such as platinum, palladium and rhodium.
Kinshasa-based mechanic Tresore Kadogo said between five and 10 clients come to him every day with the same problem.
“We check underneath the car and the catalytic converter is gone already, it’s been cut off,” Kadogo said. “This drug bombe is hurting our clients, especially recently.”
Users mix the crushed honeycomb with vitamin pills and typically add sleeping tablets, sedatives or smoke it with tobacco, but nothing is known about how it works, or its long-term effects, said Dandy Yela Y’Olemba, country director of the World Federation against Drugs.
The metals in catalytic converters can cause cancer, he said.
“It’s not a substance made for us to consume,” Yela said. “Are we engines, or are we humans?”
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