Suzan Chala
Mandrax and dagga are still the favourites among South Africa’s junkies, but heroin, cocaine and amphetamines pose a danger for the future, says the man who will head South Africa’s central drug authority, Frank Kahn, director of public prosecutions in the Cape.
The government has produced a drug master plan making provision for the establishment of a central drug authority. Key government departments will be represented on this body, which will report to Parliament annually, setting out the national effort in the fight against drugs.
“The departments that do not do their work will be exposed,” says Kahn.
He says too much energy has been spent in addressing problems related to drugs that “are, at present, an overseas problem”.
“Our problems and our solutions differ widely from those of other countries abroad and must be defined and dealt with by ourselves in our own geographical context.”
Kahn says past efforts to fight the drug problem were futile because the message could only reach lite- rate people, who speak English or Afrikaans, and urban populations, leaving about 24-million people in rural areas in the dark.
South Africa ranks among the world’s largest producers of dagga and is described by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention as a “hub for regional drug trafficking and abuse”.
The UN says the country’s relatively prosperous markets, geographical location and good infrastructure make it vulnerable to drug trafficking.
Kahn identifies alcohol abuse as one of the major problems in South Africa and says the central drug authority will call on the government to be “as aggressive about alcohol advertising as they are about cigarette advertising”. He says 50% to 60% of violence in the Western Cape is alcohol-induced.
The UN stresses in its report the need for a balanced approach in dealing with the drug problem and the importance of the 2008 target date for reducing the consumption of drugs.
The report, launched in South Africa this week, focuses on recent trends in production, trafficking and consumption of drugs, demand reduction and alternative development. According to the report the drug problem can be stopped and reversed. “Progress has been most significant with regard to the two main problem drugs, cocaine and heroin,” says Rob Boone, Southern African representative of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention.