Rehana Rossouw and Steuart Wright
The Narcotics Bureau has called in the might of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to help stem the flow of drugs into the country.
“We can use all the help we can get. The US government, and especially the DEA, have vast experience in the field of combating drug trafficking,” said police spokesman Colonel Raymond Dowd this week.
With the government expressing concern that Cape Town was becoming the gateway to Africa for drug cartels, and the Narcotics Bureau examining the efficiency of its drug-busting methods, the police have decided to elicit DEA assistance with drafting a blueprint to combat drug smuggling into South Africa.
While Mandrax and dagga remain the drugs of choice for Cape Town dealers and users, the availibility of cocaine is increasing sharply.
Dowd said a relationship already existed between the South African Police Service and the DEA, with information and assistance being exchanged when needed.
The DEA has helped to train local police in drug investigation and sent officials to Cape Town earlier this year to assess training facilities at the police training college.
Meanwhile, a group of neo-hippies, representing South Africa’s alternative culture, are calling for a top- level meeting with police to address the “incompetence” of the country’s drug squads.
The Alliance for Alternative Communities of Africa is angry that police arrested people for “ridiculously” small amounts of the “soft drug” dagga at Grahamstown’s National Arts Festival, while hard drugs were freely available on the streets.
The group also claims that South African Narcotics Bureau (Sanab) officers were not able to recognise some of the “hard drugs” in circulation.
Alliance spokesman Roddy Gregory said: “I told Grahamstown police liaison officer Warrant Officer George Green that if he gave me R500, within an hour I could have brought him a silver platter of heroin, speed, ecstasy, and five kinds of LSD, all from within a two kilometre radius of his police station.”
Gregory tried to lay a complaint of incompetence against Sanab with Grahamstown police, but was told by Green to take his complaint to the drug squad.
“We can’t go to Sanab. These are the guys we are against,” he said.
Gregory said Green refused to contact Police Commissioner General George Fivaz or any high-ranking officers, which prompted the alliance’s call for a meeting with senior police before the end of the week.
‘If we don’t have a top-level meeting by the end of the week, I am going to park my bus on the steps of Pretoria (Union Buildings) and I am going to stay there,” he said.
Grahamstown Sanab head Captain Gerrie Trytsman said almost 1,5kg of dagga was confiscated during the festival, 19 people arrested for possession and six for
Other than the arrest of one person for dealing in mandrax, no other “hard” drugs were confiscated.
Trytsman denied his men were on a crusade against dagga smokers, and said it was in their pursuit of hard drugs that dagga-offenders were arrested.
He also said dagga was easier to detect by its smell, and that police relied on information for making busts and nobody came forward with information on other
In at least one case, the Alliance had the backing of Grahamstown prosecutor Renay Matthys, who complained about the waste of police and court time spent on arresting and prosecuting an offender for possessing amounts of dagga so small they could not be weighed.
But Nel said the 11 narcotics police at the festival had tried to co-operate with the neo-hippies: “We tried really hard to be friendly with these guys, but maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. They wrote on a wall that dagga must be legalised — that is not the way to do it.”
He also said police had no power to legalise or decriminilise the herb and as long as it remained illegal they would have to act against users and
Gregory said he was not fighting for the legalisation or decriminilisation of dagga at this stage, but for a campaign to educate police and the public about the reality of recreational drugs.
The Alliance was vehemently opposed to chemical drugs and their adverse affects on users, but supported the use of dagga and other homeopathic stimulants.
Gregory said the infiltration of heroin into the country through the Nigerian connection and shebeen networks meant it could be bought in the townships at R12 a dose, which is among the lowest prices paid for the drug in the world.
“In six years’ time, these kids who are stealing 50 cents for glue are going to be smack (heroin) monsters. They will be stealing R500 for a fix and raping women and it is not going to stop at that, they will do it again the following night. That is what we are worried about here,” he explained. — Ecna