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sanca drug awareness week: 19 –26 june 2006

youth must unite, 29 may 2006

johannesburg mayor amos masondo on monday urged south africa's youth to unite in tackling issues facing them today.

speaking at the launch of the 30th anniversary of the june 16 soweto uprising, masondo said: "i urge the youth to actively participate in making joburg the best it could be. the youth of today is faced with different challenges, compared to the youth of 1976.

"they have to deal with drugs and alcohol and those are serious matters to be addressed. i therefore urge all the young people to participate in making their communities better," he told a function at morris isaacson high school in soweto

masondo's statement was supported by thabo kubu of the june 16 foundation.

"the youth foundation was established with the objective of preserving the legacy of the 1976 youth. the main aim was to constructively contribute to the upliftment of all south africans."

kubu said the youth had to work together to deal with issues such as unemployment, drug abuse and alcohol.

the aim of the launch was to unveil the youth month program, which is will run from june 5 to june 29.

this year's theme is focused on deepening youth participation in south africa's development.

also attending the launch were the chairman of the youth commission, recreation, arts and culture mec barbara creecy, and minister in the presidency dr essop pahad.
 

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ibogaine: 25 april 2006 - by patrick whyte

a controversial drug designed to combat heroin is being offered to patients around south africa.

the drug, called ibogaine, is based on an active principle found in the iboga plant, found in gabon, and reportedly eliminates the withdrawal symptoms and cravings associated with heroin addiction by blocking brain receptors that have previously been affected by the drug.

this makes it different from conventional heroin addiction treatments such as methodone which are simply used to wean addicts off the drug by mirroring its effect.

uct spokesperson skye grove said they 'do not intend to start clinical trials' while offering a glimmer of hope to addicts, ibogaine has a dubious history.

it is illegal in a number of countries, including the us, not least because it produces similar side-effects to other psychedelics such as lsd and mescaline. it has also been linked to a small number of fatalities.

clinical research on the drug is in its infancy.

dr deborah mash, a researcher at the university of miami, has conducted limited trials on patients. she found that ibogaine can help those addicted to heroin, alcohol and other substances.

the drug has undergone no such studies in south africa.

'i heard about ibogaine but thought it was hogwash'
a carte blanche investigation into ibogaine included a mention that the university of cape town was interested in starting trials with the substance but on monday uct spokesperson skye grove said they "do not intend to start clinical trials".

carte blanche has admitted on its website that the statement was erroneous. pretoria pharmacist charles rossouw is confident of the drug's merits.

he runs a rehabilitation centre in the city where he charges r12 000 per treatment, claiming a 60 percent success rate among heroin addicts.

"i knew a couple of people who were using drugs," said rossouw. "i heard about ibogaine but thought it was hogwash. but the more i read, the more i became intrigued."

rossouw believes that the reason ibogaine is not widely available is simple: "nobody knows about it." rossouw's clinic mainly treats patients from around pretoria but he has looked after people from "as far away as cape town".

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coke worth r64m seized, 19 april 2006


johannesburg - two large drug busts at the johannesburg international airport in the past two days have kept off the streets cocaine with an estimated value of r64m.

south african revenue service (sars) custom officials intercepted a shipment of 20kg of cocaine on wednesday morning.

"the large quantity demonstrates the threat syndicated crime and the smuggling of illicit items, including narcotics, pose to south africa and its communities," said sars spokesperson adrian lackay.

sars found the narcotics concealed in the wooden handles of women's handbags as part of cargo freight on a saa flight from sao paulo airport in brazil to johannesburg. lackay said the flight landed shortly after 06:00.

"customs officials risk-profiled the shipment and physically searched the contents.

"inspections found that the narcotics were concealed in the wooden handles of female handbags."

the drugs were believed to have a street value of more than r9m.

no arrests had been made.

the bust followed police's seizure at the airport on tuesday morning of cocaine with an estimated street value of r55m.

lackay said the incidents were not necessarily linked.

police arrested a 34-year-old nigerian man at his home in randburg on tuesday night in connection with their bust, superintendent vishnu naidoo said.

"the drugs arrived here yesterday (on tuesday) morning at 09:00."

he said "hundreds of thousands of rands in cash was also seized" from the man's home. police were not expecting to make further arrests.

the drugs were imported from south america about a week ago.

in the past seven months, drugs with an estimated value on the street of r130m have been seized at johannesburg international airport, naidoo said.

lackay said the smuggling highlighted the importance for sars to improve customs operations' border and trade control capabilities.

"sars investigators together with the police will investigate the matter further," said lackay
 

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90% of teen addicts can't stop, 3 february 2006

johannesburg - nine out of 10 south african teenagers in drug rehabilitation will revert to their addictions within a year, an expert with young people said on friday.

"the drug rehabilitation system is not geared towards teenagers," said quintin van kerken spokesperson for bokatie, a teenage rehabilitation centre in douglasdale, johannesburg.

"and this is where the massive growth in addiction is evident."

he estimated that there were at least 1000 teenagers, from all walks of life, in rehabilitation in the johannesburg area on any given day.

they were usually referred to rehabilitation after a crisis, either a legal one, where they landed up in court, or over-dosing or family referral.

van kerken said cross-addiction - where teenagers used a number of drugs simultaneously - was the most common form of addiction.

primary school addictions

"it is not like the old days where your child was addicted just to dagga."

he said children, even primary school pupils, were experimenting with, and becoming addicted to drugs like heroin, cat, ecstasy, dagga and tik.

sometimes they were using, and addicted to, more than one at a time.

"they use cocaine, yes, to a certain degree, but it has become almost unfashionable."

van kerken said drug counsellors and rehabilitation centres were seeing "a major increase in addicted middle-class kids".

"yes, we do see the very wealthy - i mean multi-multi-millionaire kids to the dirt poor, but addiction is becoming more prevalent in ordinary families."

he said children were using money their parents gave them to buy drugs, or prostituting themselves for the cash.

"children are losing very vital, integral parts of their growing up to drugs."

van kerken said drug dealers had found "a new cash cow" in children.

"i will go on record and say that i can walk into any school - you name any school you like, primary or high - and within 15 minutes i will have bought some drug."

he said the lack of teenage-focussed rehabilitation was of dire concern.

"in all my research there is no special programme specifically designed for teenagers."

the rehabilitation system had to be re-designed to accommodate the needs of teenagers who, because of their age, went back into exactly the same environments they had left.
 

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a word from government

as cities and towns struggle to cope with drug abuse, a revised national drug master plan aims to intensify interventions and reduce the supply and consumption of drugs.

"the challenge of curbing substance abuse requires a coordinated, multi-pronged effort, including among others, legal, health and socio-economic responses," said social development minister zola skweyiya in the foreword to a draft plan. the draft was discussed in all provinces and revisions will help inform the country's drug blueprint for the next five years,replacing its predecessor. skweyiya said in the draft that the second master plan was aimed at creating a society in which the country's citizens lived free from the harms associated with substance use, abuse and dependence. in the draft, authors from the central drug authority (cda) note that sa continues to experience unacceptable levels of increased substance abuse. "the rapid globalisation of the drug trade over the past decade has virtually assured that no country is immune to the threat. sa also experiences a substance abuse problem and continues to serve as a transit point," read the draft.

the country's well developed infrastructure, geographic position and porous borders made the country a natural target for drug traffickers. the formation of drug syndicates was growing, with desperate and unemployed youth being lured into becoming drug couriers. sa was currently one of the world's largest producers of cannabis, with substance abuse occurring naturally, like dagga semi-synthetics such as cocaine and heroin as well as fully synthetic, such as ecstasy, mandrax and methamphetemine. alcohol and other substance abuse was a major cause of crime, poverty, reduced productivity and unemployment. "its sphere of influence reaches across social, racial, cultural, language, religious and gender barriers and, directly or indirectly, affects everyone," said the authors, who linked tobacco together with alcohol as a gateway to other drugs. the revised drug master plan would act as a barometer of the commitment and performance of and its citizens in the field of substance abuse. to achieve its aims, the master plan has identified main areas of focus - crime youth other vulnerable groups such as workers, women, people with disabilities and the elderly community health and welfare research and information dissemination international involvement and communication and capacity building.

professor solly rataemane, chairman of the cda, said among the changes envisaged was for the plan to be written in language that was simple and clear, articulating one vision. "it has to be more focused on outputs," said rataemane, saying this focus would increase with changing trends, such as the "tik" phenomenon in the western cape. rataemane said provincial cda forums needed to be strengthened and "local action committees" established in municipalities. he said there would be a clear effort in terms of encouraging government departments to work harder by developing their own mini drug masterplans, and increasing awareness of substance abuse. rataemane said the issue of resources for the cda, both financial and personnel, needed to be finalised. he was confident the new plan would make a difference in the country's fight against the drug scourge. "it is a reconfirmation of the need for a drug-free society and it will empower provinces and government to understand their role in combating drug abuse," said rataemane.

the authors conclude in the draft report that a failure to address substance abuse adequately could jeopardise the attainment of real reconstruction and development in sa. "while there is a need for a house for every family, school books for every pupil, a hospital bed for every patient and a monthly pension for the aged, it should never be forgotten that drug misuse blights individual lives, undermines families and damages whole communities." the need for action was emphasised by the south african national council on alcoholism and drug dependence (sanca). "the drug masterplan is just a talkshop right now," said sanca executive director, shamim garda. she said the current plan was good enough as it was and should be put into action rather than being revised all the time. garda mentioned financial constraints as one of the major obstacles hampering the effective operationalisation of the plan.

she said a new board would be constituted shortly.

(source: business day, july 18, 2005)

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heroin on our playgrounds


three young people have died from heroin overdoses in the past few months in south africa. these included a 14-year-old boy. surely, their main concerns should have been skateboards, pimples and cds? how does it happen that children barely out of primary school overdose on mainline drugs?

not my child "you cannot protect your child from coming into contact with drugs," says grant jardine, manager of the cape town drug counselling centre. "by the time a child leaves high school, every single one would have come into contact with drugs – whether they chose to use them or not. between half and a third of all males in cape town will have experimented with illegal substances by the time they hit grade 11."

drugs on the playground

"most selling of and experimentation with drugs happen on the schoolgrounds. it is not unusual for children as young as 10 or 11 to be experimenting with hard drugs," says captain niekie coetser of the narcotics bureau of the south african police services. "there is a tremendous amount of peer pressure among schoolchildren. children who have money to spend often use it to buy social acceptance, which in many cases means drugs. in years gone by, the class rebel smoked behind the bicycle shed and the class nerd bought friends by giving them chocolates from the canteen. not any more".

heroin on the increase

both coetser and jardine have commented on the tremendous increase of heroin-related cases they have dealt with over the past few months.

"in march 1998, we were involved in the first heroin case in ten years. currently, about one-third of the approximately 30 arrests we deal with every month are heroine-related," according to coetser.

"in 1999, 6,8 percent of the clients at the drug counselling centre named heroin as their current drug of abuse. by 2000 this percentage had almost doubled to 11 percent. previously the use of heroin was fairly rare amongst our clients – now we deal with 60 cases per year," says jardine.

creating the demand

how has this hard-line drug found a foothold in our society? coeter and jardine agree on how this was done.

"initially dealers sold heroin at very low prices (one-tenth of a gram for between r10 and r30), and waited until there was a demand for the drug, then pushed prices up dramatically, in some cases as high as tenfold. heroin is also sold at relatively low prices – much lower than the going rate in the usa, for instance. currently heroin sells in clubs and on the streets at anything between r130 and r300 for a gram.

drug abuse in cape town is definitely much higher than elsewhere in the country. the reasons for this are hotly debated – it is a port city, it has the biggest rave circuit, it is a wine-producing region, there are large numbers of foreign tourists. the fact is that heroin has found a foothold in the mother city and its users are becoming younger and younger.

affording heroin on pocket money
where do children find the money to support expensive drug habits? "some parents give their children exorbitant amounts of pocket money – sometimes as much as r2000 per month", says coetser. "this is often money given in lieu of love, time and attention, so parents do not ask too many questions about where it goes."

"when the pocket money runs out, children resort to crime to support their habit, often starting off with selling their parents’ possessions.

what makes heroin different?

"heroin impacts more severely on users than other drugs. not only is it more addictive than dagga, ecstasy or alcohol, it also impacts more quickly on users’ daily lives, rendering them incapable of continuing their normal routine. hence the tendency for heroin addicts to seek help a lot more quickly than other drug users," adds jardine.

"heroin is also cut (mixed) – sometimes as much as ten times and mixed with all sorts of substances, which in south africa have included arsenic, rat poison and chalk, says coetser. "because it is injected, the user cannot detect an unusual taste or smell."

overdosing sometimes happens out of ignorance of the potency of the drug. but usually children don’t try something like this on their own for the first time, and therefore jardine thinks it is unlikely that when someone overdoses by themselves, that it would have been the first time they tried heroin.

why are our children apparently such easy targets for drug dealers?
jardine explains:" we live in a drug-taking society, where there is the general perception that drugs, including prescription drugs and alcohol, can help you to solve your problems. adolescents are also going through a particularly stressful time in their lives, where they are also more likely to succumb to peer pressure. drugs are seen as a way of coping with stress, not only by teenagers, but often by their parents as well. teenagers watch their parents drinking, smoking or take tranquillisers and they follow suit".

is there anything parents can do?

jardine and coetzer made the following suggestions:

parents should confront the issue and not assume that their children won’t do drugs, talk to children about the dangers of drug abuse
if parents suspect something they should act immediately rather than worry about their social standing and what other people will think of their family, parents should check the example they set for their children, parents should be on the lookout especially if there is a predisposition to alcoholism or other drug use in some other family members, parents should try to develop a relationship of openness and trust with their children, take an interest in what you children are doing in their spare time, get counselling if there is a problem
 

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