Cape Town - Police are looking to further turn up the heat on drug dealers, especially tik manufacturers, by charging them under the Environmental Health Act since the gases produced in the drug-making process can lead to illnesses as severe as cancer.
Manufacturers of tik use any of 24 toxic chemicals listed as “in need of close monitoring” in a UN convention to which this country was a signatory, said senior police detective Captain Johan Smit.
“In the US the owners of houses where drugs are made are forced to do a proper clean-up of the area around the house and to decontaminate the house itself before people can live in it again.
“I want to have a test case to see if we can force the owners or tenants who make the drugs to cover all this,” said Smit of Cape Town.
“You will find that people who rent or buy a house that had been used for making drugs like tik develop respiratory problems after a time.
“And if you consider that many of the ingredients are carcinogenic, people can get cancer from it, too.”
Tik manufacture, a relatively simple process which could be set up in a domestic kitchen, created several toxic gases and residues that pollute the air and environment in the immediate vicinity of the building, Smit said during a recent interview.
“People are unknowingly exposed to this stuff and they take ill from it, not knowing what the real cause of their illness could be.
“I have decided that I am going to add charges in terms of the Environmental Health Act to the charge sheet next time we hit a tik house, or other drug manufacturing premises.”
Smit said another serious problem caused by tik makers and dealers developed when these people threw the drugs down a drain or a toilet to get rid of evidence.
Those chemicals eventually end up at a sewerage works where it destroys the bacteria needed to keep the processing of waste going,” he said.
“To reconstitute the bacterial processes at a sewerage works costs thousands of rand and it actually knocks out the facility for a period of time. It is very damaging.”
This comes as police record a marked growth in the amount of tik being confiscated in raids.
“We are definitely confiscating more tik than, say, five years ago and we know that it is not because our capacity to find it has improved. This can only mean that there is more tik doing the rounds. We also know the prices have dropped, another clear sign there is more on the market,” Smit said.
But the use of the drug in what had been perceived as its traditional market – poorer communities on the Cape Flats where gangsterism is rife – has flattened out and addiction counsellors report a reduction in the number of patients who report to them for treatment.
Some suggested that this could mean tik had found a way into middle-class areas, because of its relative affordability compared to other, more upmarket drugs like cocaine. Some counsellors also reported a growth in the use of heroin.
“Tik also offers an energy boost and this might be an attraction for middle-class users who might be under pressure at their places of work or business,” said Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre director Ashley Potts.
“Our recent observation has been that there is a decrease in the number of tik cases coming our way and it seems tik use is decreasing in certain areas,” he said.
“But we have seen a growth in the use of other drugs, including dagga.”
Smit said the illegal drug trade and abalone smuggling had to be seen as one big business. Instead of paying cash for the abalone, foreign traders would pay their suppliers in drugs or in the controlled chemicals with which drugs were made.
Local organised crime syndicates might prefer being paid in monitored chemicals, because they are difficult to buy in large quantities without being questioned or recorded.The unrecorded, smuggled, chemicals would then be used to make the drug. A similar situation could exist with regards to rhino horn and ivory smuggling. Most of the buyers of these illegal wild animal by-products were from either China or India.
Sally Daniels, counsellor at the False Bay Therapeutic Community Centre in Fish Hoek, believed tik had already made serious inroads in middle-class areas.
“I know that the community of Fish Hoek itself has a problem of addiction and part of that is tik. They are blaming the outsiders who come in with the drugs, but most people do not want to talk about it because of the stigma,” she said.
“It is something that touches any class, any area and the traditional view that tik is a drug only found in the poorer communities is wrong.
“Those people do not come forward and admit they have a problem, their period of denial is longer. Denial is a belief, not a lie, and the more affluent the person, the longer it takes for that person to realise there is a problem.”
Smit said the suspicion that tik use could be growing among the middle classes was supported by the impression that the drug was cheap and easy to get.
“Some of its best marketers are users. They do not want to feel alone, they’d rather use with other people. It comes down to peer pressure, dares and plain salesmanship,” Smit said.
Recently, police arrested a 36-year-old Nigerian man at Cape Town International Airport for allegedly smuggling drugs worth more than R1.1 million into the city.
The suspect was on the last flight to Cape Town from Joburg.
Police said 4kg of tik with a street value of just more than R1.1m and 250g of cocaine with a street value of about R71 925 was found in his possession. He is to appear in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on charges of drug trafficking and dealing in drugs.
Two years ago, a UN Office on Drugs and Crime report singled out South Africa as one of the biggest players in the region in the manufacture of tik.
Cape Argus