A third of middle class South Africans use illegal drugs – survey

JOHANNESBURG: One in three middle class South Africans uses an illegal substance for recreational purposes.

This was revealed in The Anti-Drug Alliance’s annual survey and report.

The alliance spoke to drug treatment centres, the police and paramedics to get a clear picture of drug abuse in the country.

“It showed us as a nation under siege… The reality is that everyone seemed to be saying the war against drugs was lost, that South Africa had been hit by a drug tsunami, and that fighting the problem was ineffective,” said chief executive offi- cer of the Anti-Drug Alliance, Quinton van Kerken.

The survey was completed by 35 433 people online as well as 22 376 people through e-mail, phone calls and social media portals. This means a total of 57 809 responded to the survey. It found that the majority of respondents lived in Gauteng and the Western

Cape, were aged 22 to 45, were employed fulltime and either drank no alcohol or drank two to three times a week.

Just over a third of the respondents – 34 percent – admitted to taking drugs themselves. The majority of users favoured marijuana (32 percent) followed by cocaine, cat and LSD.

Most users spent up to R200 a month on drugs, but 13 percent spent up to R500 while a further 13 percent spent up to R3 000 a month. Two percent spent up to R10 000 a month on drugs.

Most of those surveyed did not have tattoos, did not smoke cigarettes, did not watch porn and did not gamble. Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed said they believe South Africa does have a drug problem and they thought the government was not doing enough about it.

The Anti-Drug Alliance decided to interview teenagers personally and they spoke to 2 512 teens at various schools. Of these, 69 percent said drugs were available at their school, and 34 percent said they had used drugs in the last six months.

Comparing the results to last year’s survey the alliance found that marijuana use is up by 11 percent, nyope (unga) is up by 9 percent, tik has nearly doubled in the past year (up by 88 percent) and cat is up 82 percent. Many cocaine addicts have migrated to using cat. “This could be attributed to cost, as cocaine’s prices have seen an increase in price,” the survey reads. Magic mushrooms appear to have surged in popularity, as well as LSD.

Rehabilitation centres have seen an increase in people checking in over the past year, with a growth of 25 percent. Some people are returning to rehab up to nine times.

Van Kerken said every day more and more dealers are on the street.

“The fact is that we have lost the war.” He calls for the legalisation of drugs as a solution because the current system is not working.