Surveys done at 2 534 schools across South Africa point to the fact that drug abuse is a key reason behind the high failure rates of students and that dagga ranks as the third biggest problem after general drug addiction and teenage pregnancy.
Teachers around the country have raised serious concerns regarding the possible legalisation of dagga in South Africa, arguing that it could prove detrimental to the youth because it was “unrealistic to believe that legalised dagga would be controlled and kept out of the hands of young people.
Unfortunately many learners believe it will help them obtain better marks - I can't imagine why they think that because we have experience in school of dagga smokers who regularly under-achieve.
Dagga is prevalent in the community and our school is heavily exposed to dagga traders and smokers. Legalising dagga will almost give those addicts and drug traffickers an open opportunity to exploit innocent children who are at the mercy of the drug merchants in the community.
We have matriculants who smoke dagga and do not even care to miss an important examination. They are rude to teachers and there is very little we can do about this.
Dagga distracts the learner from academics and shifts his or her focus to their next fix or sale. It trumps all other issues demanding their attention and time.
Just to say once this is legalized it will become a snack killing our children.
The future of our learners will be destroyed. The country will be full of criminals made by this drug. The number of rapists will increase. More number of street kids. More uneducated people, which will make this country more [worse] than it is. The number of mad people will increase.
Learners are smoking dagga before they go to class in the morning. They are high and cause major problems in class. Dagga then leads to stronger drugs.
The reality is that they lose any possibility of a valuable life or future as drugs – any drug including dagga causes some kind of dependency. Dagga usage causes physical, mental and emotional behavioural changes.
