The Drug Despair in Durban

MANY DURBAN youths continue to fall into despair as a heroin wave sweeps across communities, devastating the lives of families and the future of their children.

In some areas it’s sugars and in others it is whoonga, but these drugs share dangerous common characteristics. Their main ingredient is heroin and dealers enhance this with ARV’s and rat poison. Durban communities which have been affected by this pandemic include; KwaMashu, Chatsworth, KwaDabeka, Claremont, Marian hill, Chesterville, Ntuzuma and Inanda. It is also prevalent in the Durban CBD and the Berea area.

Addicts risk their lives to get their hands on anything that can be sold to get a fix. They steal anything – from copper cables and clothes from their neighbour’s washing lines to their mother’s kettle and food in the fridge. Others quit their jobs or get fired from work because they feel they have to smoke.
The drug busts which took place last week will not fix the problem because the authorities and parents seem to overlook the power of addiction.

In a discussion with Sam Pillay, the chairperson of the Anti Drug Forum in Chatsworth, several issues regarding the effects of the drug were raised. One centered on the need to tackle addiction itself instead of just its consequences.. Pillay says the parents of addicted children sometimes press charges against them in the hope of getting them off the drug. Likewise, authorities arrest young offenders who steal or engage in prostitution in order to buy “a fix”.

Pillay argues that community vigilantism doesn’t work because it doesn’t deal with the root causes of addiction. An incident in Mount Moriah is cited, where four whoonga addicts were rounded up by an angry community mob and beaten half to death with shamboks, sticks, bricks, belts and any thing else that could inflict damage on the human body. The police had to break up the mob with the threat of pepper spray. They threw the young boys into the back of a police van and escorted them back home. People in Mount Moriah called it community justice.

He says that in most instances, the Department of health, police, parents and teachers are not equipped to deal with these issues.

The entry level of drug addiction is getting lower and the moral fibre of society is disintegrating. This is corroborated by figures indicating that there is a high level of child prostitution, associated with the drug, in Durban.

Girls, as young as 15 can be seen on the roads near the Chatsworth Youth Centre and shopping malls, selling their; bodies at night. They signal motorists to stop, desperation written all over their faces. They discard their chastity for as little as the cost of a fix – about R20 to R50. During an investigation which led to the Mercury breaking the story on the deadly whoonga in Durban townships, some of the boys told of tales where girls would offer themselves to dealers and drug pals for a few hits of the drug.

One of the young addicted prostitutes said the pain of withdrawal from drugs was unbearable and that she had to smoke at all costs.

“We started smoking after school with some of the boys in my class. I realized once I was hooked that there was no turning back, it is really painful. I just want to smoke so I can feel normal and happy again. I started selling my body when I couldn’t get money from the drugs.”

If Durban is to overcome substance abuse, then it must strike at the root cause - addiction.

There is medication which can suppress the urge to smoke - such as Subutex. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Subutex is a long-acting opiate primarily used to treat narcotic (opioid) dependence. It is sold as a pill that dissolves under the tongue. Its purpose is to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

The pill stimulates the opiate receptors in the brain and has a greater attraction to the opiate receptors than other drugs, such as heroin and methadone, resulting in a drastic reduction of the desire to take drugs. However, the downside is that it also causes dependence and has also become available on the black market.

Ironically, Sam Pillay said, some of the dealers were selling both Subutex on and heroin. If the addict ends up becoming addicted to the cure, which causes another problem.

Another drug available for sugars and whoonga addicts is Naltrexon. It is similar to Subutex, but is more effective, according to Pillay. It shuts down the urge completely. The tablet is important because it tackles the root causes of drug abuse. Pillay adds that once addiction had been overcome therapists can start psychological evaluation, goal setting and reintegrating addicts into society.

“It is all in the mind and we need to show addicts that they can lead normal lives. We have to show them that they can’t go back to the lives they were living before. They can’t expect to change if they are still going to hang around at the same places and be friends with the same people; they have to be ready to change.”

Although it is not enough to rid the effects of a drugs with another drug, more emphasis should be put into equipping teachers with the tools to fight addiction in the schools. since most drug addicts are school children and drop outs. A start would be to include substance abuse in the curriculum when students study towards a teaching qualification. This would enable them to understand that addiction is not just a dependence on a chemical substance, but it is a dependence which has manifested into a lifestyle.

In a socio economic perspective, drugs in Durban are more readily available in poorer areas of society where the youth don’t have access to recreational activities. Children just don’t have much to do, they go to schools where sports and extra mural activities are not taken seriously as private or semi-private schools. Pupils who participate in extramural activities such as sports, debating, drama, the arts and spiritual upliftment programmes are less likely to fall victim to substance abuse than pupils who go to school and come back home to hang around on the streets or in corners and drug dens.

Sam Pillay says there are former addicts who kicked the habbit thanks to Naltrexon and spiritual change. He said once they had seen that there is more to life than drugs they change for the better and play a more positive role in society. However, the only addicts with a higher success rate were the ones on Naltrexon and expressed an eagerness to quit and change their lifestyle.

Durban residents need to make a stand and fight back against this deadly drug. They need to understand that addiction leads to actions that people wouldn’t normally do in a sober state of mind. It is simple, if we get rid of the addiction, and change the lifestyle of school children in our underprivileged communities, we will get rid if the crime and the drug abuse that is associated with it.