Fighting the drug scourge

THE news, broken by this newspaper about a week ago, that nyaope, one of the greatest scourges facing mainly township families, is not listed as an illegal drug, is most disheartening.

A day hardly goes by without one publication or another telling harrowing tales of the concoction wreaking havoc in communities.

One of the stories carried by Sowetan was that of a14-year-old addict who eventually took his own life, fuelled by the drug.

Police have lamented the fact that since the ingredients of the drug are everyday domestic commodities, such as rat poison, the fight against nyaope was severely compromised.

But that isn't entirely the true story of the nyaope tragedy. Our crime reporter wrote again of the frustrations of some communities who have met with less than satisfactory police service in their efforts to fight drug use.

This is in no way a case of painting the entire police force with the same soiled brush, but it is cause for concern when noble efforts on the part of the citizenry to rid communities of something like nyaope are foiled by the men and women in blue.

So we call on the police leadership to investigate allegations made by Operation Thiba Nyaope, a non-profit organisation fighting the drug, that elements in the police on the East Rand were working with known drug peddlers and dealers, collecting protection money from them.

The organisation claims it was prevented by the police from "tackling" the drug lords.

Now, that sounded a bit like a thinly veiled threat of vigilantism, which we strongly condemn. Unlawful methods cannot be allowed to take precedence over orderly means of restoring the rule of law.

South Africa, more precisely the Cape Flats in Cape Town, has had its taste of unguarded enthusiasm running riot in the name of crime fighting.

Thus a noble mission intended to rid a community of a scourge that was ruining children while feeding an insatiable monster degenerated into vigilantism.

We hope community-based efforts in the fight against nyaope and other destructive drugs achieve the impetus needed in the form of proper cooperation between law-enforcers and the people.

That there are initiatives to eradicate drug use demonstrates the will to raise our children in normal societies that place greater value on life rather than leave 14-year-olds to waste their lives even before they start.