By Hon. Musa Hassan Bility
From the red clay roads of Saclepea, I write today not just as a legislator, but as a father, a brother, and a victim of the war we are losing. Liberia is at war, and our enemy is not across the border, it is here among us. It creeps quietly into our homes, poisons our children, destroys our families, and eats away at the future of our nation. Its name is drugs.
This is not an abstract issue for me. My own family has been torn apart by this scourge. I have a child in prison because of drugs. I have another in a rehabilitation center, fighting every day to reclaim their life. And the rest of my children are victims too, robbed of the joy of seeing their brothers as they once did, forced to live with an absence that no words can explain. We no longer sit around the same table as a complete family. We no longer share the same laughter. We live with the heavy silence that drugs have left in our home.
Five out of every ten families in Liberia are living this same nightmare. Sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, trapped in addiction, recruited as peddlers, discarded when they can sell no more. And yet, those who import this poison walk free, untouched by the law, while our communities bear the full weight of the destruction.
The Legislature is currently on break, but when we return to session, I will introduce a Resolution declaring the war on drugs a national emergency. This Resolution will call for immediate and decisive action:
• A Special National Anti-Drug Budget to fund targeted enforcement against major traffickers, strengthen our borders, and build rehabilitation centers in every county.
• A National Commission on Rehabilitation and Recovery, comprising professionals from Liberia and around the world with specialized skills in addiction treatment, counseling, social reintegration, and community healing, to administer these rehabilitation centers and ensure world-class standards of care.
• A Specialized Drug Court to ensure swift and deterrent prosecutions.
• Modern scanning and detection equipment at every port of entry.
• Annual national reporting to measure the social, economic, and security damage caused by drugs, and to hold leaders accountable for results.
But more than policies and budgets, this is a fight for our children’s lives and our nation’s survival. It is a fight that must be free from politics, free from blame shifting, and free from the silence that has allowed this crisis to grow. The danger is clear and present. Every day we delay, more children are lost, more families are broken, more communities are destroyed.
I call on my colleagues in the Legislature to stand ready to pass this Resolution when we reconvene. I call on the Executive to begin acting now, break or no break, to tighten borders, intercept shipments, and arrest traffickers. I call on the Judiciary to deliver justice without fear or favor. And I call on you, the Liberian people, to unite in this fight, for it is your homes, your children, and your future that are at stake.
When history records this moment, let it say that we did not turn away. Let it say that when the threat was greatest, we rose together, with courage, and we fought to save Liberia from decline. Let it say that we stood not only for policy, but for the families who cried quietly in their homes, for the mothers who prayed through sleepless nights, for the fathers who carried silent heartbreak, and for the children who still had a chance to be saved.
This is our war. It is my war. And it is a war we must win.
Gontee Meddrics
Countries that have succeeded in the fight against illicit drugs have focused on importers and not just the users. We have over 200 land borders with less than the required security forces to mend them.