n Annalie Anticevich
Drugs and drug addiction has a profound effect on a community.
The Addie has investigated these effects after several stories on this issue have been carried by our paper over the past month.
Henry Harber of the Wild Wild Guardians, a volunteer organisation that works with children connected with drugs, says everyone thinks Springs is a bad place.
He says we only hear of drug mules and monster houses in Springs because there are volunteers who care enough to act on the drug problem.
The Wild Wild Guardians work closely with the Hi5Kids and the drug awareness non-priofit company Mad Rage Against Drug Abuse.
Harber feels the only way to stop drug abuse is for more people to speak out about it.
“People don’t talk about drugs because they feel ashamed about a family member involved with it and are ignoring the problem. “Your silence allows the problem of drug abuse to persist and become worse,” he says.
The effects of drug abuse in Springs are detrimental to our town’s people and especially the children who are trapped in circumstances where they are abused, neglected and not being cared for.
Because a drug addict will do any thing for their next fix, they will ignore the needs of their own children – only to get that satisfaction.
He says children who are removed from their homes to a house of safety usually eat as if they will never get food again.
This overeating is caused by the neglect and hunger they suffered and the belief that there will not be food for tomorrow.
“These children have been scarred for life,” he says.
Harber believes there are a lot of house break-ins, theft and crime happening in parts of Springs that are related to drug abuse because the druggie has to get money to sustain his habit.
“This robs our residents of their hard earned money when they have to replace the stolen item,” he says.
Harber provides three examples of what happened to young people in our town within less than a week, between Thursday March 12 and Wedesday March 18.
n A 17-year-old boy, addicted to thai, assaulted his mother while he was on a high. This teen had been involved in several armed robberies, house break-in and theft cases.
n A 20-year-old boy was killed with a knife by one of his drug-friends allegedly over an argument about one packet of thai. He was killed by one knife wound to his neck.
n A 29-year-old woman, found on a high in Butler Park had to be taken to the police cells. She was delirious and denied that she had family. It was unclear what substance she was using.
Harber says drugs are ripping families apart.
Parents with children trapped in the cycle of abuse are ambivalent about their children.
On the flip side are parents searching for children who have home to be with their drug addicted friends.
A 16-year-old girl who stopped using drugs says some girls she had met during her drug-use years, had wonderful family that repetitively pleaded with the girls to come back home.
Many of her old drug friends were girls that sold themselves to get drugs or were kept as sex slaves.
One girl was married to a drug dealer for whom she had to get money for drugs through prostitution.
She also recounted that one girl would tell her boyfriend she was visiting friends, when she was actually prostituting herself to sustain her drug habit.
Dean Stone, ward councillor of the Springs central business district and Geduld where drugs are a huge problem, says the drug abuse by people in Springs is a great concern.
He says the DA constituency for Springs and Nigel has visited about 15 schools in Springs to offer help against the scourge of drug abuse.
They also initiated a petition where several hundreds of people asked that the SA narcotics bureau in the SAPS be opened again.
