Shield youth from scourge of drugs

A man smokes a dagga pipe. The writer says in South Africa 80% of male youth deaths are alcohol-related and drug consumption is estimated to be twice the world norm. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

A man smokes a dagga pipe. The writer says in South Africa 80% of male youth deaths are alcohol-related and drug consumption is estimated to be twice the world norm. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jan 15, 2019

Share

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Nelson Mandela Youth Centre in Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal, which was opened by the former president in the aftermath of the nightclub tragedy which claimed the lives of 13 young people in 2000.

I remember being at school, 12 years old, when the tragedy happened, and the severe impact it had thousands of kilometres away on us in Gauteng. It brought back memories for me of the effect of seeing those scenes of young people being carried out in body bags had on us as youngsters.

The community centre is doing outstanding work to support the youth of Chatsworth and surrounding areas and thankfully there has never been a repeat of the tragedy that unfolded. However, volunteers at the community centre spoke of the profound impact that substance abuse continues to have on the youth, specifically drug abuse.

In South Africa 80% of male youth deaths are alcohol-related and drug consumption is estimated to be twice the world norm.

This crisis is taking lives. It’s destroying families. It’s shattering communities across the country. And that’s the thing about substance abuse - it doesn’t discriminate. It touches everybody - from celebrities to university students, to parents, to rural youth.

One of the problems we have is too many families suffer in silence, feeling like they were the only ones struggling to help a loved one.

And let’s face it, there’s still fear and shame and stigma that too often surround substance abuse - and often prevents people from seeking the help that they deserve. Because when people loosely throw around words like “junkie”, nobody wants to be labelled in that way.

And part of our goal should be to replace those words with words like father, or daughter, or son, or friend, or sister. Because then you understand there is a human element behind this. This could happen to any of us in any of our families. Adolescents are biologically wired to seek new experiences and take risks, as well as to carve out their own identity.

Trying drugs may fulfil these normal developmental drives, but in an unhealthy way that can have very serious long-term consequences.

I strongly advocate for youth in the basic education system, from primary level, to be exposed to the effects of substance abuse, to hear first-hand from rehabilitated offenders and to see the severe impact of abuse on their peers. We must entrust our children with the necessary information, to see the consequences of their actions so that they can make informed choices.

Any anti-drug strategy must be implemented in cohesion with communities - to prevent drug use, reduce overdose deaths, help people get treatment.

We must consider our public health facilities having easy access to rehabilitation centres and we should ensure that community centres and government can provide proper information and counselling to ensure young people get the treatment they need.

Last year the Constitutional Court ruled on the legalisation of marijuana based on the evidence of its effects. I don’t dispute the medical evidence of the effects of marijuana nor the Constitutional Court’s ruling. However, when Parliament determines the relevant legislation we have a responsibility to protect our young people. Marijuana can be a gateway drug and overlooking this can come at our own peril.

With no other disease, do we expect people to wait until they’re a danger to themselves or others to self-diagnose and seek treatment? With every other disease, we understand that we got to get you help. And we also understand when it comes to other diseases that if we don’t give you help, and let you suffer by yourself, then other people could get sick. Well, this is an illness. And we got to treat it as such. We must change our mindset.

* Carrim is the chief executive of the National Youth Development Agency.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

** For more opinion go to voices360.co za

Related Topics: