VANDERBIJLPARK.- It’s called ‘lean’, and more and more students from schools in the Vanderbijlpark CBD are consuming the codeine-soft-drink concoction. Realising the growing number of students from high schools in Vanderbijlpark, gathering at municipal open spaces and buildings including the library to consume ‘lean’, concerned stakeholders decided to step in.
This is after learners started queuing at pharmacies in the Vanderbijlpark CBD to buy bottles of cough mixture which are mixed with soft-drinks to produce ‘lean’. The students would consume this mixture in large numbers after school hours, still clothed in their respective school uniforms.
The Vanderbijlpark CPF (Community Policing Forum) in partnership with the SAPS, Department of Education, Sedibeng District Municipality and Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM), embarked on an Anti-Drug demonstration against several pharmacies in the CBD. Also joining the protest action and awareness campaign were codeine activist and artist, Modisana Mabale, and the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB). Several representatives from various municipal departments including By-Laws, Traffic, Library and Information Services and Monitoring and Evaluation also joined the march.
Memorandums were handed to three pharmacies in Vanderbijlpark to warn them against the uncontrolled sale of cough syrup to scholars who, in turn, use the substance as a recreational drug.
ELM spokesperson, Stanley Gaba, said the municipality will be working closely with all stakeholders including the Social Crime Prevention Office in the Vanderbijlpark SAPS and district- and provincial education officials to raise awareness and launch campaigns against ‘lean’ and all other gateway drugs.
“This is only the beginning, in the coming weeks, we are going to intensify pro-active measures to stop this social scourge,” he said.
