DRUG AVAILABILITY HITS ALL-TIME HIGH

Cape Town has become a popular end destination for a bouquet of
powerful narcotics including cocaine, heroin and other designer drugs.

And it seems with the advent of the festive season, drug smugglers
are upping the quantity of drugs smuggled into the city to meet the
expected demand from locals and tourists alike.

In the last few weeks police have arrested nine people in four
separate cocaine busts at Cape Town International Airport. But even
though the availability of designer drugs is hitting an all time high
in the city, methamphetamine (tik) is still the most widely used drug
in Cape Town.

Police spokesman Billy Jones said the Police Organised Crime
Investigation Unit was conducting ongoing anti-drug operations at
Cape Town International Airport in conjunction with crime
intelligence structures, police protection and security services and
customs officers.

The street value of the cocaine confiscated in recent operations is
estimated to be in the region of R2.5 million.

Jones said drug trafficking into the city usually showed a sharp
increase in the run-up to and during the festive season.

"Cape Town cannot be considered a drug gateway to the rest of the
country. We believe the drugs are intended for the local market."

Most of the cocaine and Ecstasy police have seized comes from
countries in South America, Jones said.

Charles Parry, of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Unit at the
Medical Research Council (MRC), said he was not surprised at the
increasing quantities of cocaine being brought into the city.

The unit told parliament earlier this year that specialist drug
treatment centres had reported the use of tik as a primary or
secondary drug of abuse had more than tripled between the second half
of 2003 and the first half of 2004.

About 60% of patients in treatment for tik-related problems were
younger than 20 and more than 40% took the drug daily.

"The one major message is that there seems to be a big use of tik in
the city, while people are now also increasingly turning to crack and cocaine."

Parry said: "They are taking drugs like tik or cocaine and then
taking other drugs to bring them down. It used to be that the drugs
of choice were dagga and Mandrax but in some cases we have even found
heroin use."

Cocaine's traditional use by the wealthier echelon of the drug market
has changed along with the racial profile of the drug's users. The
MRC had found in its research that in Cape Town one in five people
admitted to rehabilitation centres listed cocaine as a primary or
secondary drug.

The most recent statistics showed 47% of those in treatment were
coloured and 45% white. This showed a marked increase in coloured
users in recent years, with 37% of patients being coloured in 2003
and 29% in 2001.

Parry said: "It is clearly no longer a white upper-class drug. But it
is still more expensive than tik."

Cathy Karasselo, of the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre, said:
"Dagga and Mandrax are still the major two, but addiction is a
life-long process and you often move on to harder drugs as the drugs
stop having their desired effect on you."