Nyaope for rich kids
Youths lure boys from middle-class families with killer drug to get them hooked
NYAOPE addicts are getting youths from middle class families hooked by secretly lacing their dagga zols with the highly addictive drug cocktail.
This is so that young people from affluent families buying dagga zols can be hooked on the nyaope and then finance the addiction of others.
This trend of targeting the socalled “cheese boys” has become popular in townships like Alexandra and Soweto.
Pule Qaba, 23, a recovering nyaope addict who recently completed a two-week detox programme, said he unknowingly smoked a dagga zol that was laced with nyaope four years ago and became addicted three days later.
At the time, he was a pupil at Highlands North Boys High School in Balfour Park.
His addiction led to him being implicated in housebreaking, smash-and-grabs and copper theft and being incarcerated.
When he came back from prison last year he began recruiting young boys to become addicts in the same manner that got him hooked on the drug. “I used to enjoy smoking dagga at school but when a friend introduced me to nyaope by secretly putting it in my zol, I immediately liked the high that it gave me. It had a nice kick. My friend told me on the second occasion that I had been smoking nyaope, ” said Qaba.
He decided to quit the following day but the withdrawal symptoms, which included stomach cramps and weak joints, drove him to smoke again in order to suppress the pain.
“Sometimes I would not have money to feed my habit and that is when I would start approaching ‘ cheese boys’ in my township.
“I’ve seen many of them being tricked into smoking nyaope unknowingly. Lacing it on dagga is the easiest way to get them hooked.”
Bulelani Mbuthisi, the founder and secretary of Thiba Nyaope, which is an Alexandra campaign to fight nyaope, said he has never heard of new recruits being tricked in this fashion. “I didn’t know that addicts were now targeting boys from middle class families. That ’ s a new information. What I know is that very few people smoke nyaope for the first time knowingly,” said Mbuthisi.
Qaba and his friend Simphiwe Khumalo, 28, are the first former addicts to graduate from the WeCampaign founded by businesswoman Thandi Lichaba.
The two are part of more than 100 nyaope users from Alexandra that WeCampaign is trying to help. The campaign includes a two-week intense detoxing programme which involves the washing of users’ liver and blood cleansing.
“At the moment I’m paying for most of their needs and have even sacrificed my house to Pule and Simphiwe but we can do with extra help,” said Lichaba.