The war on nyaope can be won

Eric Khalishi is known by just about every young man and woman who are regular visitors to the Palm Ridge Community-based Substance Abuse Day Clinic.

According to Khalishi, the centre’s project manager, the Sanca Palm Ridge Day Care Clinic, as it is popularly known, helps addicts on different levels addiction to withdraw. He emphasised that it is once the addict has taken it upon himself or herself to stop, that the centre and its team of qualified and dedicated social workers can begin the rehabilitation process in earnest.

The centre, a stone’s throw from the Palm Ridge Courts, has become a haven for hundreds of Kathorus teenagers who are battling with addiction to the drug nyaope. For many of them, the Sanca Palm Ridge Day Care Clinic is a halfway house between self-destruction and rehabilitation.

The large number of young men and women, aged 15 to 40, who flock to the centre daily find the soft-spoken Khalishi not only amenable, warm and friendly, but also much loved by his “patients”. Those who have successfully gone through the centre’s eight-week rehab programme spoke highly of the man who managed to do what their own fathers failed to do.

For Khalishi, rehabilitating young addicts is something that touches him and his staff deeply. And even though many of addicts drop out of the programme, the centre measures its success by those who stay the course.

Rehabilitated addicts receive daily medication, which is supplemented by a breakfast of tea, bread and fruit, and lunch.

Khalishi said nyaope destroys red blood cells and this leads to memory loss. The medication restores the dead cells and treats the craving for the drug.

Addicts and their parents are encouraged to attend counselling together on a regular basis. This, explained Khalishi, is to try and rebuild broken ties between the family members.

“Nyaope does not only destroy the addict, it can also destroy family relations,” explained Khalishi.

The centre also provides recreational facilities in the form of soccer, swimming and a number of games, such as chess. The current group undergoing the rehab programme will “graduate” on February 24.

According to the centre’s 2016 successes:

· Total number of enrolled addicts at the centre: 1 150

· 99% of addicts who went through the programme were male and 1% were female.

· Average age of addicts: 28.

· Youngest admitted to the centre for rehab: 15.

· 97% of addicts are black, 2% are coloured and 1% are Indian.

· 99% of teenagers involved in drugs were raised by single parents.

· Peer pressure is the main reason for getting involved in drugs.

· Broken or dysfunctional families are the main cause of drug involvement, including absentee parents, especially fathers, lack of family role models and abandonment.

The Department of Social Development provides 100% funding for the centre. The building was donated by the Ekurhuleni municipality. Since it opened in 2016, the clinic has had a 6% success rate.

According to Khalishi, this gives South Africa a 3% worldwide success rate in the treatment of addictive drugs such as heroine, cocaine, tik, nyaope and Cat.

And this, said Khalishi proudly, gives him hope that the scourge of nyaope in South Africa will eventually be brought under control.