Pupils’ drug binge at school
LEARNERS as young as 12 years old are taking prescription drugs bought on the black market, while others are sniffing fumes from burnt steel wool or drinking cough mixture diluted with cooldrink during school hours to get a quick high.
A Phoenix teenager recalled sweating profusely, feeling limp and experiencing intense stomach cramps after she had come off a high from drinking a cough mixture concoction.
The 15-year-old had mixed the highly addictive Lenazine cough mixture, with a fizzy cooldrink before downing it.
Three of her school friends had joined her in the “experiment” during school hours.
“We heard about the effects of this mixture and decided to try it out.”
She said they chose taking this concoction over smoking cannabis as it had no tell-tale signs, such as a smell.
“We met in the toilet before the lunch break and mixed about three spoonfuls of the cough mixture in the cooldrink before drinking it.”
The feeling of euphoria, she said, was intense.
“Everything slowed down for a good couple of hours. But then the withdrawal started, while I was at home. I had this intense pain.”
She said after about an hour, she had to tell her brother and that he “gave me tons of water to flush it out of my system”.
The teen said she had not experimented since, but her friends often did.
In Chatsworth, a teenage boy described how he discovered Xanax while with a group of friends.
“Getting Xanax was easy. We went to a pharmacy in Pinetown and got the drug without a prescription.
“After having it we realised it gave us a great high and we decided to make a business out of it.”
The Welbedacht youngster said he got together with friends and they pooled money to buy the Xanax.
“At first I sold it for R7.50 at school. The demand was huge. I reduced the price to R5 a pop. I generally sell-out before school is out.”
The teen, 17, said the pharmacy supplied him on demand and asked no questions.
He added they often smoked weed to supplement the “high”.
“The Xanax is an anti-depressant so it makes me happy, the weed makes me feel great while the cough mixture makes me feel numb.”
A 16-year-old from Mount Vernon (south-east of Durban) said she began taking the Xanax after her friends forced her to take it to be “cool”.
“Xanax is a tablet for stress and I was always stressed with school. My friends consume up to five tablets at once. I took it for six months until I got caught.
“When my parents found out they were very upset and told me I could have died.
“I took it because of the feelings of euphoria and sometimes I chased it with weed which gave me an even more intense feeling.”
She said that she and her friends would buy the Xanax from a drug peddler who lived nearby, but soon after she was caught her parents moved so she hasn’t interacted with any of her friends.
Anti-Drug Forum South Africa head Sam Pillay said tablets like Xanax and opioid-based cough mixtures contained codeine, and was fast becoming the drug of choice among school children
He said the staff at his office in Chatsworth fielded several complaints a week.
“Over a dozen schools have contacted us because they suspected the pupils were on drugs. During drug testing, some admitted taking Xanax. They said they could not do without it.”
Xanax is a schedule five drug that is commonly used in the short-term management of anxiety disorders.
Mohamed Shah, of the Drug Action Committee in Phoenix, claimed some learners also sniffed burnt steel wool for a high.
A Phoenix principal said: “On Thursday, the security guard noticed that a pupil, who was holding a purple concoction in a Sprite bottle, had been looking withdrawn.
“The child admitted that he had mixed Halls cough drops with the Disprin in the cooldrink, which he drank.
“We notified his parents and asked them to a meeting, but they refused.
“They would rather shield their kids.”