MELINDA FERGUSON interviewed four teenagers, three of whom share their experiences of drug addiction, and all who share their attitudes to drugs, life and the future Tupak (16) A pupil at a technical college in Johannesburg, Tupak is a cool-looking dude who is ”addicted to everything”. He has dreadlocks and slouches around in somewhat dirty […]

MELINDA FERGUSON interviewed Alex Hamlyn, head of substance abuse treatment and a drug counsellor at Houghton House HAMLYN defines addiction as an illness or disease, identified by a loss of control over the amount of drugs used. The individual’s continued use of the substance, despite negative consequences, further identifies the illness. ”The age of onset […]

When a young girl becomes pregnant she has the option to abort SINCE the Abortion Act was legalised in 1997, 36 069 legal abortions have been performed at the Marie Stopes clinics nationwide. Of these, 5 700 have been performed on girls between the ages of 12 and 17. A teenage girl is often not […]

Two young women talk about how they dealt with falling pregnant. LISA (22) speaks of the dilemmas she faced when she decided to have an abortion: When I was in matric, I fell in love with a guy. He wasn’t the sharpest dude in the shed! He was really a hopeless type. Look, he was […]

Andrew Phillips, owner of The Ranch brothel in Johannesburg, sued George Fredrick Hardaker, a senior special investigator with the Scorpions and member of the asset forfeiture unit, for R500 000 in the Johannesburg High Court this week.