MOTHERS TEAM UP TO COMBAT DRUG NIGHTMARE

Crack, rock, speed, heroin, Mandrax, E, uppers, downers, snorting,
sniffing, smoking, spiking, tikking...

They're not words you'd expect would dominate the conversation when a group
of Cape Town mothers and grandmothers meet over a cup of tea.

But they have been drawn into this world, one which also includes words
like convulsions, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, suicide, and
sometimes death. They have formed a support group to help one another deal
with the nightmare of their children's drug addiction.

Seven months ago Yolanda Truter's teenage son Charnray Schuller smoked
"tik" (methamphetamine) in a park with friends.

It was only the second time he had used it but it was also the last. His
body was found the next morning in his vomit-soaked bed. He was 15.

Venetia Orgill's son Troy tried to kill her while out of his mind on a
cocktail of drugs.

She was forced to lock herself in her car and smash through her garden
gates in a desperate effort to flee her drug-crazed son, who was trying to
stab her with a pair of scissors.

Abeda and Achmat Benjamin's son Rameez played rugby and hockey for Western
Province until he started taking drugs.

They say he turned into a criminal virtually overnight, stealing whatever
he could lay his hands on to get money for drugs. He died after being shot
11 times by friends - fellow drug addicts he had fallen out with.

Another son, who is 13, has since started taking drugs and this week they
found out a third son had taken a gun from their safe, possibly to sell for
drugs.

In desperation they turned to the Department of Social Services for help
but were told there was no place on the waiting list for their children to
get help.

The parents say drug taking appears to have reached epidemic proportions
everywhere in the Western Cape. In Mitchell's Plain a "tik task team" has
been set up to combat the spread of the drug but it is sweeping the
province like a contagious virus.

Two girls were shot, one fatally, in Belhar last Sunday, allegedly after
going to buy drugs. Orgill said she heard of a seven-year-old dealer in
Tafelsig this week.

A grandmother and mother of five, she has already gone to hell and back
with her only son, watching him abuse every drug he could lay his hands on.

She has seen him become so aggressive that 14 people couldn't hold him
down. She has watched him smash every window in their Mitchell's Plain
home. She has heard him scream in terror at night hallucinating that snakes
were crawling on his bed.

He has been arrested in Sea Point, raving like a lunatic while high as a
kite, and been locked up countless times. He has disappeared without a
trace for weeks on end, leaving her frantic with worry.

"There were times I thought it would be a blessing if he died because I
offered him everything and it wasn't enough." But she has come to terms
with the fact that his drug abuse is not her fault.

Orgill, who works from home as a florist, has refused to give up her life.
She has started a support group for parents of drug addicts to teach them
to be strong and to help them cope.

It's held every Thursday from 7pm until 9pm at the Beaconvale frail care
centre. Call (021) 376 2931 or 084 413 6760.