The long struggle of young men abusing drugs is excruciating torture to their parents and grand parents.
Louis van Vuuren (69) and his wife Annetjie (67) from Strubenvale are desperate to see their grandsons, Louis (25) and Leonard (22), clean of the drugs they are abusing for the past eight years.
On the other hand says Lea-Anne Swanepoel (54) from Selection Park she is seeing light after six years, now that her son Mark (27) is getting clean at a treatment centre.
All these parents have been providing a loving home, clean bed and food to their sons who choose to do drugs.
They have often seen their children in terrible pain and sometimes close to death because of the substances they are using.These parents also regularly go searching, during the midnight hours, for their sons while these children are on a high and sometimes disappear for days.
Both Lea-Anne and Louis say their children’s drug habits started when they got involved with the wrong friends, but as they got hooked on these substances these friends were nowhere to be found.
Both of them are furious about foreign drug dealers moving into Springs, selling drugs to our children.
Louis feels these drug dealers are “in our town to kill our children with poison.
“These children are young, and what future do they have if they keep on using drugs,” he says.
Louis says he has asked the police, many times, to do something about the drug dealers and even gave them information about deals, but the police’s answer each time is that someone has to be caught in possession of a drug before he can be arrested.
He says he is worried about Louis junior who is using heroine and Cat, while Leonard is attempting to kick the habit.
Both Louis junior and his brother are working at this stage to support their habit.
If they are not working, they will beg for money or steal from their grandparents.
With the knowledge of how the drug addicts are thinking and operating, Louis warns residents of Springs not to give money to beggars because all this money goes to drugs.
What’s worse, he says the children are continuously telling lies about their whereabouts.
Their two grandsons, who live with them in Strubenvale, have cost Louis and Annetjie heartache and these grandparents have had to give out a lot of money for them.
The van Vuurens say they are desperate and don’t know where to turn to because being pensioners they don’t have money to send the children to a rehabilitation centre to kick the drug habit.
Lea-Anne says she has learnt that for treatment to be successful, the person must go to rehab of their own free will.
Mark is currently at his eighth drug rehabilitation institution, and this one seems to be helping him get off drugs.
He used rocks and acid for the past two years and previously also used heroine.
Lea-Anne says Mark could not keep a job because of the drug habit.
He used to steal anything of value or take the copper from electrical appliances to sell for drug money.
