“What happens is that it comes in a form of powder and then I throw a liquid on it, water, and then I cook it up and then I inject it. Basically, for me it’s only to take the pain away. I don’t have a main reason for using it. But it was basically just to fit in. Peer pressure plays a bigger role in that thing. And I was just stupid. Like I said I regret the day I used the drug. I regret the day because I didn’t know about the withdrawals, nobody told me about the withdrawals, nobody told me about the effects it’s gonna have on me.”
“Nobody can sleep sober on the street; you will die of the cold. Why do you think most of the people survive on the street? Because there’s something in their system, there’s something toxic in their system that keeps them warm and helps them,” he confessed. According to Robert Michel, executive director of Outreach Foundation, a non-governmental organisation which helps needy young people, “out of five we send to rehab maybe one will stay clean for at least six months. And we usually loose them out of our sight, and we don’t know whether a year or two years later they’re still out of drugs or have come back. That, we don’t know. So, at best, at best, I’d say our success rate is about 20% but it could be much less actually.”
“There’s always hope, there has to be hope. Otherwise, what would we do here on earth? The sun is shining again tomorrow, in Africa at least where the sun is always shining, and that gives us hope and that pushes us on. Yes, we know it’s probably a lost battle, but I still think it’s worth doing it.”
Article Tags
Heroin
Drug Abuse
South Africa
Poverty