HIGHWAY TO HELL HITS A SPEED WOBBLE

Gauteng is home to the shady drug laboratories that produce the
Western Cape's tik - but drug counsellors warn that its abuse is on
the rise in the Western Cape too.

On Wednesday, Social Welfare Deputy Minister Dr Jean Swanson-Jacobs
announced that a legal loophole would be plugged in the 2003 law that
had made ephedrine (or "speed") a schedule-5 drug (only available to
patients with a doctor's prescription).

She said the law had failed to curb production of its synthetic form,
pseudoephedrine, which is a decongestant used in flu medicines and
cough mixtures.

According to Andreas Pluddemann, a senior scientist with the Medical
Research Council's alcohol and drug abuse unit, only 14 patients out
of 3 250 in 19 Gauteng drug-treatment centres during the first half of
2007 reported tik as their first choice drug.

"Obviously this is a small number, but it has increased from 2005,"
Pluddemann said.

But while Gauteng has fewer tik addicts than the Western Cape, where
it is devastating poor communities, the province appears to be home to
the drug's manufacturers.

In April, police raided a smallholding between Meyerton and De Deur,
south of Joburg, arrested six Chinese nationals and seized 10kg of tik
worth about R150 000. Also in April, a man was arrested after a tik
lab was uncovered in Northcliff.

Then in May, another tik lab in Weltevreden Park, west of Joburg, was
raided, and chemicals to manufacture at least R18-million worth of tik
were seized.

"We picked up a trend of more manufacturing operations being in
Gauteng than in the Western Cape, which seems to be a strategy for
drug dealers," Pluddemann said.

"It's possible the [local] use and availability may start to increase.
In Cape Town it started this small, if you go back to 2000, but has
since increased drastically," he said.

At this stage, Pluddemann said, it seemed the drug was marketed in
Cape Town exclusively.

Alex Hamlyn, director of the Houghton House drug and alcohol
rehabilitation centre, said tik was gaining ground in and around Joburg.

"Tik is moving up in the market. It is becoming widely used here," he
said.

"It will spread out from here and become a major problem."

But Senior Superintendent Deven Naicker, the national head of the
narcotics desk in the SAPS's organised-crime division, believes tik
isn't a problem outside Cape Town.

"There are isolated incidents of its usage in Gauteng but we have
tightened control and managed to dismantle a large number of tik
laboratories in the area. As long as we can control the supply of its
ingredients, we will control the spread of the drug," he said.

Today, the Social Welfare Department was due to launch a programme in
Franschhoek, Western Cape, called Ke Moja - meaning "I'm fine"
(without drugs) - aimed at preventing tik abuse among the youth.