Teenagers suspended from school for two weeks for dagga use are likely to leave school permanently and turn to tik‚ even if not using it before they are suspended.

This is what drug policy advocate and UCT Psychiatry department staff member Shaun Shelly found.

He was speaking at the Clinical Cannabis Convention on Saturday in Johannesburg.

 He argued that the current South African drug policy of making all drugs illegal exacerbates the harm of drugs. Shelly works with drug users and does research on drug policy that reduces the harm of drug use rather than increasing crime‚ forcing drug users underground and denying them healthcare access.

He said children at schools in areas in Cape Town with high levels of tik use did not test positive for tik [crystal methamphetamine].

But after the teens left school or were suspended for dagga use‚ this changed and they switched to harder drugs.

He said police would do drug searches for dagga on children with sniffer dogs at schools.

 “If these are not apartheid police tactics‚ I don’t know what is.”

 Children found with dagga or testing positive for its use were suspended for 14 days‚ but often didn’t return to school and then got into harder drugs. This is an example of how the current government drug laws make the situation worse‚ he said.

Hope House‚ an independent NGO in Cape Town‚ works with 25 schools to prevent children being suspended for drug use and instead the pupils are asked to miss school once a week for 14 weeks and attend their programme. Hope House has a 75% success rate in keeping children in school even after being found with drugs‚ he said.

In some cases a child is thrown into a holding cell after being found with dagga and will be too scared to phone their parents‚ will not give the police their home address and thus will be legally kept in jail for seven days. Exposing them to gangsters and harder drugs in Pollsmoor Prison had devastating effects‚ he said

Shelly said while politicians like Patricia de Lille said Cape Town had a drug problem‚ South Africa had a “drug policy problem“.

For some users‚ many did not feel they had a drug problem but a “drug solution“. This is because the use of drugs made it easier for them to cope with their “shitty life“.

One person he knows said “I would like to give up heroin‚ but damn what I would really like is a job“.

He said evidence showed drug users in South Africa did not die from drug use but from sepsis‚ TB‚ Aids and hepatitis because they were marginalised and could not access medical treatment.

 He also said he knew some police called low-level drug dealers “spaza shops” and drug users “ATMs” as they are seen as easy targets to bribe.

 Shelly works with an NGO called Step UP that distributes clean needles to heroin users.

 The programme does not require or ask users to stop drugs‚ but compassion often helps them to do so‚ with many saying it is the first time in years they have been treated as humans.

 “Compassion changes behaviour.

Shelley believes science shows drugs should be all legalised and plans on how to regulate the sale use of them begun.

 The Clinical Cannabis Convention was organised by Johannesburg residents Jules Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke‚ who have brought a trial to have the laws preventing dagga use struck down as unconstitutional and then parliament ordered to make new ones.

The pair’s lawyers are arguing in the Pretoria High Court that current drug laws are irrational‚ focusing on minimising the harm of dagga‚ while allowing other people to harm themselves with tobacco and alcohol.

 The pair’s advocate will also argue that the dagga ban does not work to reach its intended effect of minimising harm.