Nine out of 10 South African teenagers in drug rehabilitation will revert to their addictions within a year, an expert working with young people said on Friday.
”The drug rehabilitation system is not geared towards teenagers,” Quintin van Kerken, spokesperson for Bokatie, a teenage rehabilitation centre in Douglasdale, Johannesburg, said. ”And this is where the massive growth in addiction is evident.”
He estimated that there are at least 1 000 teenagers, from all walks of life, in rehabilitation in the Johannesburg area on any given day.
They are usually referred to rehabilitation after a crisis: a legal one, where they land up in court, or over-dosing or family referral.
Van Kerken said cross-addiction — where teenagers use a number of drugs simultaneously — is the most common form of addiction.
”It is not like the old days where your child was addicted just to dagga.”
He said children, even primary-school pupils, are experimenting with, and becoming addicted to drugs such as heroin, cat, Ecstasy, dagga and tik. Sometimes they are using, and addicted to, more than one at a time.
”They use cocaine, yes, to a certain degree, but it has become almost unfashionable.”
Van Kerken said drug counsellors and rehabilitation centres are seeing ”a major increase in addicted middle-class kids”.
”Yes, we do see the very wealthy — I mean multi-multi-millionaire kids — to the very, very dirt poor, but addiction is becoming more prevalent in ordinary families.”
He said children are using money their parents give them to buy drugs, or prostituting themselves for the cash.
”Children are losing very vital, integral parts of their growing up to drugs.”
Van Kerken said drug dealers have found ”a new cash cow” in children.
”I will go on record and say that I can walk into any school — you name any school you like, primary or high — and within 15 minutes I will have bought some drug.”
He said the lack of teenage-focused rehabilitation is of dire concern.
”In all my research, there is no special programme specifically designed for teenagers.”
The rehabilitation system has to be redesigned to accommodate the needs of teenagers who, because of their age, go back into exactly the same environments they left. — Sapa