Pretoria - The drug and substance abuse problem in Pretoria has reached epidemic proportions, with more than half the young people in Atteridgeville abusing illegal substances.
According to this year’s Gauteng Socio Economic Outlook and Review, 51.4 percent of young people in that area abuse drugs and the most commonly abused substances are alcohol, cannabis and the notorious nyaope.
Nyaope, a mixture of dagga, heroin, antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and other legal medication, has proven to be a problem in most of the city’s townships, including Mamelodi, Mabopane, Atteridgeville, Soshanguve, and Ga-Rankuwa.
“Our youth are dead while they’re alive. Only their bodies are with us, their minds are not here,” said Ntlogeleng Mogotsi, executive director of the city’s health and social development department.
She was speaking at the launch of the City of Tshwane’s discussion document on the Tshwane Anti-drugs and Substance Abuse Plan, called Operation Reclaim Life, Reclaim Youth, Reclaim Family.
The plan is modelled after the National Drug Master Plan (2013 to 2017).
The event at the city hall was attended by about 100 representatives from organisations fighting substance abuse, police officers and recovering addicts.
Mogotsi said the tap of drug supply must be closed before the consequences of substance abuse were dealt with. She compared it to a running tap which produced water for as long as it remained open.
“You do not first start by getting buckets and mopping up the water. No matter how long it takes you to find the source, you first find the tap and close it,” she said.
Apart from the personal and social damage caused by drug abuse, the police crime statistics showed that 60 percent of crimes were related to substance abuse.
There were more than 80 government departments, private entities, non-governmental organisations and faith-based organisations that dealt with substance abuse in the city, and Mogotsi called on all organisations to stand together in the fight against substance abuse.
“We are all affected. If we want to make an impact we have to hold hands and move forward,” she said.
The plan focuses on three main areas to curb substance abuse in the city: reducing the demand for legal and illegal substances, reducing the supply of illegal substances and limiting the damage to individuals caused by substances.
In August, as part of the process of developing the plan, the city embarked on an information-gathering expedition by holding anti-drug and substance abuse summits in each of the area’s seven regions. The only ward not covered was Eersterus.
The summits included meeting with communities and families of substance abusers to find out what their biggest problems were.
“We should not do this as a hit and run. We need sustained and continuous action,” said Mogotsi.
The regional chairman of the local drug action committee, Goodwill Makhudu, said the city had only eight drug action committees, set up according to regions. These are: Atteridgeville, Mamelodi, Soshanguve, Eersterus, Olievenhoutbosch, Temba/Hammanskraal, Ekangala/Bronkhorstspruit and Mabopane/Winterveld/Ga-Rankuwa.
The only wards that have ward-based drug action committees are Mamelodi (3) and Atteridgeville (1). According to Makhudu, Soshanguve and Temba/Hammanskraal will soon have ward committees.
Makhudu said there were many challenges facing the substance abuse industry, including the lack of commitment from the Central Drug Authority, lack of facilities for after-care, limited financial support for NGOs rehabilitating addicts and a “don’t care” attitude by the police.
“Communities said they held meetings and the SAPS don’t come. They say they give them information but they do nothing,” Makhudu said.
He also said most action committee members were unemployed and did not receive stipends to travel to meetings, which led to dwindling attendance.
“As a community we need to come up with a collective plan to fight the scourge of substance abuse. We need to get ahead of the substance manufacturers,” he said, adding that new drugs were constantly finding their way to young people.
He said the lack of parental involvement in their children’s lives only worsened the situation.
“We would like to see 10 out of 10 users remain clean for the rest of their natural lives. At the moment, only one in 10 succeeds in remaining clean,” he said, commenting on the lack of relapse prevention programmes.
The metro has developed strategies to curb drug and substance abuse on community level.
A budget of R1.5 million a year for the next four years has been set aside for awareness campaigns in each of the city’s regions and R250 000 will be used to train peer educators and supporters in each ward.
By 2015, ward-based anti-drug and substance abuse committees and regional help desks, costing R1m, will have been established.
To reduce the harm caused by drugs and illegal substances, the metro has earmarked R1.2m for the establishment of multidisciplinary teams to help affected users, family reunions and substance abuse treatment programmes.
Some R1m will be used to help the police arrest suppliers and drug dealers and tackle drug hot spots in communities. The plan is in line with Tshwane Vision 2055.
“We cannot have a liveable and resilient city if we do not address the social ills such as drug and substance abuse in our midst,” said Seoketsa Kekana, of the metro’s health and social development department.
case study – a second chance
Moses Letsoalo realised he had to quit drugs when he was arrested for the sixth time and spent two years in prison in England for drug trafficking.
Because drugs are not allowed in British prisons and he was taken for weekly drug tests, Letsoalo had no choice but to clean up.
“The main reason I quit was because of the pain I caused my loved ones. My daughter. who was three years old when I went to jail, told me if I loved her I should come back home,” he told the Pretoria News.
Now 36, he used drugs for 17 years.
He started using illegal substances when he was 13 because he wanted to celebrate the fact that he was going to high school.
When Letsoalo returned to Atteridgeville in 2008, he started Aga Sechaba (which means building the nation in Sotho), an organisation that helps to rehabilitate drug addicts and reintegrate them into society.
Letsoalo and his wife, who has stayed with him despite his drug habit, have two children and he funds Aga Sechaba with money he makes from business ventures.
“The highest level I reached was Grade 9. The only certificate I have is a parent of the year award from my child’s school,” he said, adding that he had been parent of the year for three consecutive years.
Letsoalo has been clean for five years and he employs former offenders and recovered substance abusers in his construction and airconditioning repair companies.
“I give them a chance because I was also given a second chance,” he said, adding that his efforts had improved the lives of more than 1 000 families over four years.
COMMUNITY ISSUES
* Anti-drug and substance abuse meetings are not well attended.
* Communities are afraid to address drug problems in their areas.
* Families are dysfunctional and parents do not know where their children are or what they are doing.
* Young people are bored as there are few recreational facilities, which leads to them abusing substances.
* The police do not take information from the community seriously.
DRUG USER ISSUES
* Drug addicts must be approached with love.
* Communities must not accuse drug addicts or label them negatively.
* Community forums must not take the law into their own hands.
* More rehabilitation centres must be opened in the city.
Pretoria News