Addicts ‘smoke human ash’
CUTTING AGENT: CEMETERIES, MEMORIAL WALLS RAIDED ‘BY DRUG USERS’
Deceased’s last resting places raided to give more volume to narcotics.
Have we really reached a point where drug addicts plunder ashes from memorial walls to “spice up” their whoonga?
This has been a rumour following incidents of vandalism at the Scottburgh cemetery in KZN and cemeteries in Gauteng.
At first, suspicions led to the belief that the Scottburgh Cemetery Memorial Wall was being vandalised by people practising the “dark arts”.
The memorial stones at Scottburgh Cemetery have been vandalised almost on a weekly basis. Countless memorial stones have been broken and ashes looted. One of the walls literally has no more occupied spaces.
Generally, the mixture of the drug whoonga is believed to con- sists mostly of heroin, morphine and strychnine (rat poison). The rat poison is used as a cutting agent in order to increase the volume, but apparently human ashes are now being used to replace the rat poison. Whoonga has also been found to contain trace amounts of antiretroviral drugs – also used as a cutting agent.
According to reports on the Sowetan Live’s website, an employee at a cemetery in Kempton Park came forward stating that more than 50 memorial stones had been vandalised by alleged nyaope users.
On June 6, in Krugersdorp Eileen du Toit’s mother’s ashes were stolen from the bedroom closet where they had been kept since her mother died about a year-anda-half ago.
Workers at Mooifontein Cemetery in Kempton Park and at Avalon Cemetery in Soweto said many graves had been vandalised, supposedly by nyaope smokers.
However, Norkem Park police station spokesperson Captain Lesibana Molokomme said though a number of cases of graveyard vandalism have been opened, he could not confirm that the perpetrators are drug addicts.
Police spokespersons in Krugersdorp and Kagiso said no crimes of this nature had been reported as yet. – Caxton News Service