ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu has broken his silence about his son’s devastating drug addiction – and has called on all of South Africa to unite to cut the drug supply to the nation’s young people.
Mthembu spoke out on Tuesday on Primedia’s Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk, and told the Cape Argus later: “We used to speak about a ‘lost generation’ “– a reference to the country’s youth in the wake of the youth’s involvement in the Struggle against apartheid.
“My son is a total wreck, a lost person. If we don’t address this crisis, then what will become of the next generation? What will happen to this country once we are gone?” he asked.
Mthembu said his son had been treated at least six times at addiction centres, and through counselling they had learned that his son had become an addict while in Grade 7, some years after his parents’ divorce. But this had been unknown to Mthembu for at least the next five years.
“The divorce may have been a trigger,” he said.
Over the next few years, household items like television sets and sound systems had begun “disappearing” from his home in Witbank and Mthembu had believed it had been theft.
On once occasion, thousands of rands saved for another of his children’s school fees had been stolen.
“I never suspected my son for a minute,” he said. “I thought it was thieves.”
Similarly, in later years, even items such as blankets and groceries had disappeared from his ex-wife’s home – all, it later transpired, to be sold for drugs.
Mthembu said alarm bells had first rung loudly when his son had failed matric, “despite his being a bright kid”. His son had repeated his final year, but had again “failed dismally”.
In the years since, his son had been admitted to various centres and institutions half a dozen times, but had consistently relapsed.
“He has told me: ‘There is no drug I have not touched.’ “ Mthembu said.
There had been times when he had picked his son up off the city’s streets – “as filthy as a dog”. His son had even arrived in this state of disrepair at ANC headquarters at Luthuli House, seeking his father’s help.
Speaking about solutions to the scourge affecting so many across the country, Mthembu said: “We have to break the supply chain, and to do that we have to stop the drug suppliers.”
He said this effort had to be a collaboration between police, the government and society.
He said parents also needed to ask themselves whether they were “absent”, or “part-time” parents – and needed to ensure they knew what was going on in their children’s lives.
“I am speaking out because we as parents also need help,” he said.
“Maybe there are others who have been through what I have gone through, others who can help.
“This affects all of us, black and white. My son has turned into a vagabond and (his addiction) has threatened to drag us into his terrible world.
“Our young people need our support to tackle this – and so do we, as parents,” he urged. - Cape Argus