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Users attack their mothers

Drug users sell household items to feed habit.

KANYAMAZANE – Local mothers are abused and some assaulted by their children who use drugs, especially inyaope (heroin).

“I fear for my life. At times when my son is high on inyaope, he comes into the house demanding food and money and if he does not get any, he threatens to kill me. He has in some instances held me against the wall,” said a mother who preferred to remain anonymous to protect the identity of her son.

Her fears were echoed by another one who said, “Both my sons smoke weed and inyaope. It is like hell living in the same house with them because they told me that this is their home, they have rights and I should feed them. I have done all I can, but they still smoke and my furniture disappears weekly because they need money to buy more drugs.”

Parents around the area and as far afield as eNtokozweni, allege that their children steal household items to sell for drug money.

Reliable sources from SANCA, who cannot be named because they are not the official spokespersons for the organisation, revealed that the most commonly used drug among the youth used to be marijuana but from 2012 there had been an increase in inyaope users.

Police reports state that the youngest child they have dealt with was 13.

Wonga (home-made mixture of inyaope) is a mixture of heroine, marijuana, ARVs, Rattex and any detergent at his or her disposal to make a deadly concoction.

The youth use it to pass the day or to be considered “cool” among “friends”, hugely influenced by what they see in music videos and what they watch on normal television channels.

A Mpumalanga News journalist interviewed WO Andries Skwambane, spokesperson for KaNyamazane Police Station, about how they were dealing with or finding ways to curb this scourge.

“Unfortunately the parents do not come to us and report these cases, but instead they go to the schools. We established that and we formed a relationship with teachers. We have found that the schools affected most by this problem are ZB Kunene High, Thembeka Senior Secondary and Khaliphani High which is the most notorious school when it comes to this new trend.

“We have found seven sources where they sell drugs around Lekazi and those who we caught, were arrested and released by the court,” he said.

He claimed that police were also worried about the justice system of the country because they did their jobs to arrest suspects who were apparently released on bail. It was alleged that drug dealers, like most suspects, continued where they left off after being released.

A teacher, who cannot be named for fear of being victimised, said his school doesn’t have a specific number of the learners who are addicted to inyaope.

“It is very difficult to teach them when they are high and at times they are violent.”

“Treading the fine line between a reason and an excuse why the youth of the province does this, most of them use the excuse that they are unemployed and don’t have anything else to do to pass the time or have any sort of recreation so they smoke”.

Inyaope is known by various names from province to province – it is known as sugars in Durban, ungah in the Western Cape and pinch in Mpumalanga and other names are thai, H, plazana and kwape.

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