Nyaope worry yet no action
ALEXANDRA - The potent nyaope is a criminalised drug and those who peddle in it or use can be prosecuted.
Be warned, nyaope has been recognised as an illegal drug and those who peddle in it or use it will be prosecuted with possible prison terms.
This was stated by the MEC for Public Safety earlier this year when unveiling the department’s security plans. Despite this, there is a still an outcry that many children and the elderly are addicted to this drug said to contain lethal ingredients from rat poison, cleaning chemicals, crushed glass, battery acid and an assortment of other drugs. Its mixture keeps adding up to presumably increase the drug’s potency.
The drug is said to be affordable and its peddlers known to be members of the community. Its users are from all social classes. Concerned residents and development organisations have pleaded for its eradication, especially as a majority of its users are young and are school children whose lives are ruined if the scourge is not stopped. The other concern is that the addicted users steal and rob for money to sustain their habit. Mabel Dikobe of the Alexandra Development Centre said, first they steal from their homes and when nothing more is available they raid neighbours for whatever they can get to sustain their habit. Punch Masenamela of Tshebelisano Support Group said the users range from 10 to 40 years. “After exhausting items to steal, they sell recyclable and reusable material at scrap yards. They [users] can be detected by their outlook which includes stooped walking posture, not bathing, weight loss due to not eating and hanging together in spots which are now known to be their smoking places,” he said.
Dikobe urged those in recycling businesses to refrain from buying items from those they suspect take the drug. She condemned residents’s apathy and lack of interest in taking steps to stop the infiltration of this and other drugs in the area. “Our children and the future is doomed if nothing is done and soon especially with an enabling legislation in place,” she concluded.
