Once upon a time youth was supposed to mean an age of innocence. Today, step into any classroom in South Africa and chances are you’ll find at least one learner who does drugs. It might be alcohol, prescription or over-the-counter medicines; dagga, mandrax or hard-core narcotics like crack or heroin. Or the drugs of choice could well be all of the above.
And these users might not even have reached puberty.
Teen and pre-teen drug use has increased dramatically since 2000, according to the Medical Research Council (MRC). The research shows that the biggest increases have been in Cape Town and Gauteng, followed by Durban. In the Western Cape, 17% of all addicts in treatment are teenagers – compared to 6% in 1997.
There has also been a dramatic increase in demand for treatment for heroin abuse, indicating it to be a primary drug abused in Cape Town and Gauteng. In Cape Town, the increase in heroin use is particularly evident among teenagers.
In smaller cities like Port Elizabeth and East London, the percentage of teenagers abusing alcohol was found to be higher than in Cape Town and Durban. The MRC also found that consumption of crack-cocaine has increased among Durban teenagers, while the percentages in Cape Town and Gauteng have levelled off. While club drugs such as ecstacy seem to be firmly entrenched in youth culture countrywide, Cape Town is indisputably the capital of poly-substance abuse among teenagers, followed closely by Gauteng.
Major studies on South African youth also show that the numbers of drug abusers are growing while the age of users is decreasing.
Today, half of those seeking treatment for addiction problems started taking drugs before the age of 13.
The Western Cape’s Safe Schools Call Centre reports that learners as young as 11 are calling the hotline. On the one hand this suggests South Africa’s youth is slowly becoming more open about its drug abuse. On the other hand it could mean that, by the age of 16, many learners would have been there, seen it all, done it repeatedly and have the scars to prove it.
For some youngsters, drug experimentation will simply be a harmless rite of passage into adulthood. For others, teenage drug use is the beginning of a descent into the vortex of addiction, from which few will recover happily ever after.