Life Stories

In 2016, I was caught in possession of crack cocaine. Fortunately, my uncle bailed me out for R5000. Things got worse and I started stealing from home, shops, robbing people and hijacking cars. My Grandmother tried to intervene. My mother would cry a lot because of my lifestyle and the community was getting tired of me. It came to a point where I had to make a decision…

Click on the link below to download our cartoon about the harms of drug addiction. Make copies of our cartoons and distribute them at school, work, and in your community!

Click on the link below to download our cartoon about the harms of drug addiction. Make copies of our cartoons and distribute them at school, work, and in your community!

I was raised by a single parent. Fathers are very strict, but I didn’t have a father and took advantage of this fact. I allowed the devil to deceive me, to take control of my life and to use me in a way that would suit him and fulfil his plans. His influence in my life lead me to make many wrong decisions.

At the age of 13 I smoked my first cigarette and got drunk. I was 14 years old when I first smoked dagga. In my second year of high school I started going to nightclubs. I attended nightclubs regularly and when my friend began to deal drugs I assisted him; I was 15 at the time.

When I arrived at the University of Johannesburg things went quite well at first, but made a turn for the worse. I started drinking alcohol excessively, I began smoking dagga and soon I progressed to using other drugs as well.

?My name is Tom* and I first smoked dagga when I was 13 years old. By the time I reached matric, at the age of 17, I was fully addicted to dagga and I continued to smoke until the age of 31.

Dagga helped me to ignore the responsibilities of daily life and took hold of me quickly. As my addiction grew, I began to experience the dark side of a drug which many claim is ‘soft’ and the use of which is often described as harmless fun.

Previously I had been a top sportsman, taking part in rugby, cricket, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, golf, athletics, cycling and wrestling and now I couldn’t even run 100m without wanting to vomit because of my dagga habit. Before dagga I used to be a top performer at school, always at the top of my grade.

Despite going to Bible Class every Saturday and church every Sunday, by the time I was 14 I had started smoking cigarettes and was having the occasional beer, which I would steal from my father’s secret stash in the garage.