Tales of addiction
Nkosi said he broke into a house and stole what he could sell to gather the capital to start his own drug empire.
Thabo Nkosi from Soshanguve started using and dealing in nyaope in December 2002.
Nkosi, in an interview with Rekord, said his past was painful because he had seen people die or being raped for a fix.
Nkosi said his neighbour had introduced him to drugs. Both smoked dagga at high school.
“Then one day, we graduated to hard drugs,” he said.
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“He said to me, ‘this has more kick than the dagga we have been smoking’. I immediately felt an impact the first day I used nyaope. I knew I wanted more.”
His neighbour eventually became a dealer and introduced him to drug-dealing.
“We went to Johannesburg to buy the drugs and as demand grew, I had to make frequent trips to Johannesburg,” he said.
Now hooked and thieving to maintain his habit, “I saw an opportunity to cultivate my own supply line because I knew the suppliers and how the business operated”.
Nkosi said he broke into a house and stole what he could sell to gather the capital to start his own drug empire.
Then he encountered new problems.
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“I was using my stock myself. So, profits declined and the business crumbled.”
So Nkosi said he tried another tack.
“I knew nyaope suppliers in Johannesburg so I thought I would negotiate a deal with the supplier to bring him business for cash.
“I had a street cred; so I brokered myself a deal: 30 bags of nyaope or R500 for every dealer I brought,” he said adding he ploughed himself into “recruiting dealers. “This was my hustle.”
His life took a serious turn for the worst when he was arrested for house breaking.
“Prison is tough for addicts because drugs are all over the place,” he said.
“But I had an easier ride because some of the people in prison already knew me from the outside, “So I never fell victim to the usual abuse addicts are subjected to in prison”.
“In prison addicts are easily lured into prostituting themselves. They will do anything they are ordered to for a fix. Someone will give you food, drugs and you pay by giving them sex…you become someone wife,” he says.
Nkosi said he stopped using when he realised a lot of his “friends” were dying and he saw himself following them.
“I was already a nobody, I was a disgrace… everybody looked down on me, I had to stop.”
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