90% of teen addicts can't stop

2006-02-03 21:09

Johannesburg - Nine out of 10 South African teenagers in drug rehabilitation will revert to their addictions within a year, an expert with young people said on Friday.

"The drug rehabilitation system is not geared towards teenagers," said Quintin van Kerken spokesperson for Bokatie, a teenage rehabilitation centre in Douglasdale, Johannesburg.

"And this is where the massive growth in addiction is evident."

He estimated that there were at least 1000 teenagers, from all walks of life, in rehabilitation in the Johannesburg area on any given day.

They were usually referred to rehabilitation after a crisis, either a legal one, where they landed up in court, or over-dosing or family referral.

Van Kerken said cross-addiction - where teenagers used a number of drugs simultaneously - was the most common form of addiction.

Primary school addictions

"It is not like the old days where your child was addicted just to dagga."

He said children, even primary school pupils, were experimenting with, and becoming addicted to drugs like heroin, cat, ecstasy, dagga and tik.

Sometimes they were using, and addicted to, more than one at a time.

"They use cocaine, yes, to a certain degree, but it has become almost unfashionable."

Van Kerken said drug counsellors and rehabilitation centres were seeing "a major increase in addicted middle-class kids".

"Yes, we do see the very wealthy - I mean multi-multi-millionaire kids to the dirt poor, but addiction is becoming more prevalent in ordinary families."

He said children were using money their parents gave them to buy drugs, or prostituting themselves for the cash.

"Children are losing very vital, integral parts of their growing up to drugs."

Van Kerken said drug dealers had found "a new cash cow" in children.

"I will go on record and say that I can walk into any school - you name any school you like, primary or high - and within 15 minutes I will have bought some drug."

He said the lack of teenage-focussed rehabilitation was of dire concern.

"In all my research there is no special programme specifically designed for teenagers."

The rehabilitation system had to be re-designed to accommodate the needs of teenagers who, because of their age, went back into exactly the same environments they had left.

- SAPA