SA’s role in heroin trade cripples kids
● South Africa has become a key international hub for the heroin trade, according to a multinational research report due to be released tomorrow.
It blames inefficient and corrupt police and customs officials for the scourge.
The Mpumalanga coal-mining towns of eMalahleni and Middelburg are severely affected because they are popular stops for truckers ferrying heroin along the N4 from Mozambique ports to Johannesburg.
An eMalahleni rehab clinic has treated 48 children for heroin addiction in the past year — the youngest was eight years old. Another rehab official said the town’s children were being destroyed by the drug.
The report names Gauteng’s City Deep container depot as a heroin smugglers’ haven.
● His leg shakes, his eyes are red. He’s waiting for that fix so he can face the day.
“I wish I could die. I wish my life would end. It’s been 14 years of pure hell,” says Jacques van Zyl.
He has been smoking and injecting heroin since he was 15.
Van Zyl is open about his heroin addiction, and agreed to speak to the Sunday Times and allow himself to be photographed in a bid to highlight the devastating effects of heroin, and to help educate the public.
“It’s destroyed my family, my life. Of my 14 school friends, 10 are dead. Only one is completely clean.”
He can’t stop talking.
“As soon I get that fix, I will be fine.”
He had injected himself just before the Sunday Times arrived at his father’s house in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga, where he stays on weekends.
“I’ve tried to go clean so many times. I start coming right and then, boom! That craving hits. You want that fix. You can’t get out of bed without it.
“You will do anything for it, sell your mother, murder your best friend. It makes you lose any conscience and morals that you would normally have.”
He has tried to overdose twice. “It’s only those who die who are the lucky ones. They are the ones who break this devil’s control.”
Another eMalahleni resident says her 28-year-old son, Jaco, died several years ago after overdosing in the kitchen. He had been addicted to heroin for 16 years.
“He was in and out of rehab. He had a flat and different jobs. He was clean for a while, but that craving just never left. It’s what killed him. He was stressed. He lost his job and it drove him back to the devil.”
Jaco hid his addiction from her for years. “I knew he used drugs, but I thought it was dagga. When I found out it was heroin my world fell apart. It destroyed him and our lives. It took total control of him and in the end it killed him.”
You will do anything for it, sell your mother, murder your best friend