Addicts’ plea for a second chance

Drug addicts said drugs are easily available on the streets.

The Tembisan spoke to five men who opened up about their addiction and their hopes to quit the highly addictive drug, nyaope.

The men said smoking the drug has ruined their relationships with their parents and friends. Mr Peace Molefe said he tried several times to quit.

“Each and every time I try to stop using drugs, I found myself relapsing after two or three days. Drugs are so easily available on the streets – like sweets. You get them at every corner. When the drug dealers see that you trying to stop, they lure you back giving you drugs for free. Though you told yourself that you do not want to smoke anymore, it is not easy to resist,” said Mr Molefe.

They feed their habit by offering to carry shopping bags.

“A R20 nyaope fix can last about one hour in the body,” said Mr Molefe.

Mr Sello Temane said he started smoking in 2008 when he was repeating matric.

“I was smoking dagga and I made new friends who were already taking nyaope. They persuaded me to try it and I was hooked,” he said.

“Things changed when my family started noticing the symptoms I was showing. They stopped giving me money. When I made up stories they would give me money but eventually they no longer fell for them anymore. Then I started stealing from my family and friends,” he said.

He said when he was stealing from his family he thought they deserved it.

“I felt like punishing them for not giving me money anymore. I believed they owed me. I was angry at them for punishing me without even seeing me smoking. They had never seen me smoking but heard from other people. I was not seeing anything wrong with what I was doing,” he said.

He said nyaope blinded him.

Mr Temane said he once stopped smoking for a year, but because he found himself still being friends with the same people on the streets, he relapsed.

Mr Mholi Mazibuko said that he and his friends used to smoke dagga since Grade 9.

“One guy started selling a ready-made smoke. We would buy and smoke it. It had a different effect on us. Two weeks later we asked him what it was and he told us that he mixed it with nyaope. We were hooked by that time,” he said.

Mr Mholi said in 2012 he went to a rehab but relapsed after six months.

He said the friends he used to smoke with would lure him back by bringing the drugs to him.

He is determined to change his life.

“I know I made a mistake, but I need help. If my family and friends and people around me can trust me again, and help me through this, I would be grateful,” he said.

“This is like a jail. Do not use drugs, not even once.

Look at us, we live on the streets.

We do not have families and most of us are sick. We are not trusted by our families. I can assure you taking drugs does not mean you are intelligent or in style. It can make a rich person die poor,” he said.

Ms Freda Dibetso from South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca) said her organisation refers the addicts to a shelter before they help them.

“We need to know that a person will have food and shelter before he takes medication.

A person has to change his or her environment to beat drugs,” she said.

Ms Dibetso said Sanca is working with outreach organisations to place and help drug addicts quit their habits.