Caffeine poisoning hits 600 children.

The City’s Health Department is investigating how energy chewing gum, whose sell-by date had expired, landed up in the hands of more than 600 children who have been treated for possible caffeine overload.

On Tuesday Fisantekraal residents milled around the clinic next to the Trevor Manuel Primary School when children complained of stomach pains and headaches.

As the day progressed more and more children arrived at the clinic complaining of similar symptoms and were taken to hospitals across the city.

It is believed the Blitz Caffeine Energy Gum was dumped by a company on a farm in Fisantekraal, near Durbanville.

Some of Trevor Manuel Primary School pupils collected the dumped sweets and sold them to fellow pupils and other Fisantekraal residents for 50c a pack.

The schools’ principal, Edward Rasmus, said more than 600 of his pupils were affected.

He said the children all had similar complaints, which were primarily stomach and head pains.

“We can’t say it is the gum that caused it and we can’t say it isn’t,” Rasmus said, adding, however, that the chewing gum was the common thread.

“The concern is that the gum has been spread through the whole community, because the children who picked it up on the farm sold it everywhere,” he said.

Chantell Basson, who lives close to the school, was at the clinic when the first three pupils came in.

She said the two boys and a girl were crying and had severe stomach pains. One of the boys collapsed in pain.

“The nurses gave them glucose water and then more children came in with the same stomach cramps,” said Basson.

Yesterday the city’s Health Department director, Dr Ivan Bromfield, said the product was not meant to be consumed by children.

The gum’s packaging says that it is not recommended for children, pregnant or breast feeding women or caffeine sensitive people.

It also says that one pack is the equivalent of six energy drinks.

Bromfield said medical experts assumed that the children who were receiving treatment may have suffered a caffeine overload.

“We will be investigating how the product came to be on the farm and why the children had access to it,” he said

Laticia Pienaar, spokeswoman for Tygerberg Hospital, confirmed last night that seven girls and three boys were kept overnight for observation. She said they were in a stable condition, showed no signs of food poisoning and would be discharged later today.

The provincial Health Department’s medical rescue services confirmed they received the first call to attend to the children at 10am yesterday.

Metro Rescue’s Emergency Medical Service’s (EMS) Keri Davids said they transported 174 children, between the ages of seven and 14, to the Tygerberg and Karl Bremer hospitals and to the Kraaifontein, Delft and Elsies River community health clinics.

An EMS doctor also treated and discharged 419 children at the Fisantekraal clinic.

The children were treated for stomach cramps, headaches, lethargy and vomiting, Davids said.

Albert Ngetu, the father of 10-year-old Zandry Ngetu, raced to the clinic after she started vomiting.

A panicked Ngetu, said he had made Zandry drink milk after she had told him she ate the chewing gum.

“And then she started vomiting and couldn’t stop,” he said.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer November Filander confirmed this morning that they were assisting health department officials in tracing the origins of the expired chewing gum and that an inquest docket had been opened.

Disaster Risk Management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said it was not clear when laboratory tests on the chewing gum would be completed. (from IOL)

Cops raid Dagga Party leader's home

Police raided the home of the leader of the Dagga Party of South Africa, but all they found were a few seeds.

Jeremy Acton, whose party is registered in the Langeberg Municipality to contest the May 18 local government elections, said he was not at his Montagu farmhouse when police arrived early on Friday, but they questioned one of his workers and took him to the police station.

“They took all the pips and took photographs of my marijuana graphics and a poem I have for meditation.”

Acton, who was in Robertson at the time, said he wasn’t sure if a warrant had been issued for his arrest, but he wasn’t planning to return to Montagu until tomorrow.

Acton had taken his Dagga Party pamphlets to the police in Montagu and explained that he was fighting to get the herb legalised. He said he’d heard the police wanted to stop his efforts. (from IOL)

This raid is in contravention of Mr Acton's constitutional right to free political activity. Only a moron of a magistrate would sign a search warrant for a political party.

Zero alcohol limit proposal

Drivers in South Africa could soon be banned from drinking any alcohol at all before getting behind the wheel.

John Motsatsing, chief director of road transport regulation in the Department of Transport, said the government was seriously considering a zero alcohol limit for all drivers.

“Irrespective of how many drinks you’ve had, you cannot judge if you are over the alcohol limit, because you are not an expert,” he said. “So why can we not say no drinking at all if you are driving?

“We are going to do away with the alcohol limit. We are drafting a document and will put it out for public comment.”

At least 203 people were killed in road accidents during the Easter weekend, according The Road Traffic Management Corporation.

It is estimated that almost half of all weekend motor vehicle crash victims at public hospitals are injured as a result of abuse of alcohol.

In metropolitan roadblocks one in every 10 drivers tested is above the legal alcohol limit, according to the corporation’s Ishref Ismail.

The reports listed that 57 percent of drivers tested positive for alcohol in 2008, an increase of 16 percent from the statistics compiled in 2002.

The reports showed alarming growth in alcohol use by all road users, with an overall 6 percent increase by 2008 in the number of people who died in traffic accidents while they had alcohol in the bloodstream compared to 2002.

Robin Carlisle, Western Cape Transport MEC, said the plan was “bold and dramatic”, but “wishful thinking”.

He said while close to 700 people had been killed on the country’s roads as a result of drunkenness last month, the government needed to get the basics right first.

“The emphasis should be on those who drive drunk, not those who have a drink and drive.”

Caro Smit, director of South Africans Against Drunk Driving, said her organisation understood that it was difficult to have total zero but that they would support a 0.02 limit which allows some sort of reasonable leeway for measurement error – especially to avoid criminalising people for taking medicine like cough mixture.

“We feel strongly that the alcohol limit should be lowered drastically,” she said. “However, it is no use lowering the limit if authorities are not going to catch those who drink and drive… we still do not have enough testing…”

Alta Swanepoel, independent traffic and transport consultant, said a zero alcohol limit might be hard to police.

“We don’t have enough traffic officers to take on hundreds of people and charge them.” (from IOL)

How to stop smoking? Start taking pills!!!!

The first quit-smoking pill, designed specifically to stop the urge to light up, has arrived in South Africa.

Unlike the anti-depressant pill Zyban, which has side-effects that helped smokers quit, Champix is the first pill designed specifically to stop the urge for nicotine.

Over a 12-week cycle, the pill removes the desire for a smoking "high" by blocking the part of the brain that is satisfied by the effect of smoking.

Clinical psychologist and founder of the Society for Research on Tobacco and Nicotine, Dr Karl Fagerstrom, warned smokers of the dangers of their addiction at a media briefing in Johannesburg yesterday.

"One of every two smokers will die early," he said, adding that the problem was "more important than HIV or malaria".

Six million people worldwide die from smoking every year. In South Africa 31% of men and 9% of women smoke at least one cigarette a day.

Fagerstrom said smokers added to healthcare costs and spent less time working.

"They take more time out of their job to smoke and that is also a cost."

He said banning smoking in public places reduced the number of smokers.

"On average 4% of smokers give up [because of the regulations] and those who continue to smoke, smoke less."

The main effect of the legislation, he said, was to "denormalise tobacco culture". (from TimesLive)

A short history of the coffee drug.

They probably don't realise it, but a number of world leaders might benefit from learning something of the history of coffee before speechifying on narcotics and the law. The "war on coffee" is far older than Nixon's War on Drugs, but it proved equally ineffectual. For centuries, coffee was the subject of bans, controls and tariffs, religious proscription and noisy vilification. But it always crept back, smuggled through the ports, black marketed, cut with acorns or ground broad beans. Centuries of history only see it becoming cheaper and ever more available despite all attempts to control it. (from the Guardian)

A Rondavel

That is all...

















No deaths.... Just a Rondavel

125 South African smokers die A DAY!!!

About 125 of the 23% of South Africans who smoke die from the habit every day, the National Council Against Smoking said. This means a total of 44,400 deaths a year, said the council in a statement.

Reducing the prevalence of smoking from the 23% to 5% in the next three decades was possible. "But it will require an intensification of the tobacco control campaign. "In particular, the government will have to look at its tobacco taxation policies which are in urgent need of revision."

Global action a top priority

According to leading medical journal The Lancet, an urgent global action to cut tobacco use should be the top priority of government.

This would assist in the fight to reduce deaths from chronic diseases such as strokes, heart attacks and cancer.

A global team of scientists had proposed that the United Nations (UN) should aim for "a world essentially free of tobacco by 2040, where less than 5% of people use tobacco".

This recommendation would be made to the first UN High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to be held in September 2011, The Lancet said.

The council said the meeting would provide the stage for powerful international action to develop, implement and fund actions against NCDs.

Every day, about 15,000 people die world-wide from diseases caused by tobacco.

"This rise is due to the tobacco industry's uncontrolled activities and persistent efforts to influence and weaken tobacco control policies," The Lancet said.

It added that key measures to prevent tobacco use were to raise tobacco taxes, place health warnings on tobacco packaging, smoke-free work and public places, a complete ban on all tobacco promotions, and control of illicit trade. (from News24)

South Africa's failed prohibition

The consequences of a policy, whether unintended or not, determine whether a policy has been successful or not. The South African government has adopted a one size fits all prohibitionist policy for "illicit" drugs and the results are in... We have a winner and the winner is.... Mitchells Plain. Well the children of Mitchells Plain to be more precise. The policy of prohibition has made drugs freely available to children. The policy of prohibition has resulted in all drugs being sold without regulation and freely on the street corners.... TO CHILDREN. This policy has produced the result of drugs being freely available to children - which is exactly what it set out to prevent.

Mitchells Plain: SA’s teen drug capital

DAGGA and tik remain the drugs of choice for school pupils in Mitchells Plain, with the most up-to-date research suggesting that dagga smoking in the area is so common that its prevalence is three times higher than the national average.

Worse still, the study revealed that substance abusers in Mitchells Plain were younger than their European counterparts, putting them at a much higher risk of developing drug dependency at an earlier age.

In addition, tik use was so prevalent in the area that its use now surpassed that of Ecstasy, cocaine and crack.

The study, conducted by Stellenbosch University and published in the SA Family Practice Journal, polled 400 pupils from 12 high schools in Mitchells Plain. It offers some of the most up-to-date statistics, pointing to an ever-growing problem.

Researchers found that at least 9 percent of all the pupils had used tik, while one in every 20 had used it during the previous year.

The prevalence for cannabis use was three times higher than the national prevalence rate of 10 percent, determined in 2007, the study showed.

But the statistics came as no surprise to those fighting drug abuse in the city.

The Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre’s Grant Jardine said that whenever drug use prevalence was studied in South Africa, Cape Town came out worst.

The new study also suggests that alcohol is the most common substance of choice among adolescents, with half of the pupils surveyed having consumed alcohol in their lifetime, and 34 percent having consumed it in the previous month.

The previous statistic reported for Cape Town was 31 percent.

Cigarette use was also highly prevalent, with more than double the number of pupils reporting having smoked cigarettes during their lifetime, when compared to pupils in the US and to South Africa as a whole.

The use of cannabis, for instance, was associated with the conversion of short-term memory into long term memory, cognitive impairment of comprehension and verbal recall, and mental illness – conditions that could lead to learning difficulties and ultimately to school dropouts.

“These potential learning difficulties apply to approximately 40 000 students in Mitchells Plain between the ages of 12 and 20 years, and may extrapolate into poor academic performance, school failure, school dropout, and a demand for additional learning resources,” said Hamdulay.

The use of illicit drugs was also associated with risky behaviour such as domestic abuse, risky sexual behaviour, carrying a knife and suicide attempts.

It was believed that cannabis was more popular in Mitchells Plain as it was easily available, inexpensive, easy to produce, and because the law prohibiting its use was not frequently enforced. (from IOL)

Cape Drug use at work soaring

An alarming number of companies in Cape Town are seeking help for employees who use - and in some cases even sell - drugs in the workplace.

The SA National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca) in the Western Cape has reported that about 100 companies had approached it over the past three years.

And a local labour law firm says about half of the 1000 companies on its books reported an increase in drug use at work.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) says it has also noticed an alarming spike in the use of drugs at Cape Town businesses and has commissioned a study to gather figures and information about the extent of the problem in the Western Cape.

Nadine Harker-Burnhams, an MRC scientist in its alcohol and drug abuse research unit, is heading the unit’s two-year study into drug use and the workplace.

Harker-Burnhams, who is doing her doctoral thesis on the subject, said although several firms faced the dilemma of employee drug use, there were no official numbers and also no national guidelines for dealing with the problem. The problem was not confined to any specific sector or career, she said.

Tertius Cronje, Sanca’s corporate services director, said there was a “dangerous upswing” in the number of employees using drugs at work.

“More companies are asking for assistance. More employees are using drugs at work, and even selling them there, using the workplace as a marketplace.”

Peter Schultz, chairman of the SA Association of Social Workers in Private Practice, said he had worked with firms from six sectors that were dealing with employees who took and sold drugs at work. Schultz would not disclose the type of industries, but said they varied.

He said telltale signs of drug use were frequent bathroom breaks, frequent latecoming, unexplained ailments and generally erratic behaviour, where the employee seemed “out of control”.

Both organisations said senior managers were more likely to use tranquillisers or cocaine, call centre agents tended to use stimulants and employees in labour-intensive jobs favoured tik. Employees in the sales sector were more likely to drink at work, they said.

Cronje said: “You would seldom find managers using tik and employees in labour do not have the money for the more expensive drugs.”

The organisations said it was easier to detect when employees were smoking dagga or drinking at work, because these had distinct odours and the change in users’ behaviour was obvious.

Drugs such as tik, cocaine and heroin were harder to detect.

Schultz said people used drugs in bathrooms at work or, in the case of managers, in their own offices.

Harker-Burnham said employees would also use drugs during lunch breaks, or just before they got to the office each day. She said the food and retail sectors had reported a recent increase in dismissals relating to drug use at work. The industries would not disclose figures, she said.

The MRC had also noted that some referrals for patients admitted to treatment centres came from employers, Harker-Burnham said.

She said several factors led to people using drugs at work, including stress and working in high-risk environments, such as those involving hazardous chemicals.

Employees who felt they were receiving “little reward with high demand” were also more susceptible to alcohol and drug abuse, she said.

Her study is set to start in the next two months and will focus on measuring the extent of drug abuse in Western Cape workplaces, as well as testing “evidence-based” interventions.

Ironically, Schultz said, in the short-term, employees using drugs could seem more efficient and productive, but their performance would soon take a “nose-dive”.

Grant Jardine, from the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre, said companies had over the past three or four years become more aware of drug use in the workplace.

He said drug abuse was causing on-site accidents and contributed to high rates of absenteeism.

Advocate Lionel Harper, the head of the legal services department at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said that in most cases companies could not force employees to undergo drug tests. They would first have to get an employee’s permission and that of the union.

“The employee cannot be compelled to undergo the test but refusal can lead to a negative inference. I would advise a policy on this matter so that the employees and unions are in agreement… because (substance abuse) impacts on the productivity and operations of the company and they are a danger and safety hazard to the employees.”

- Cape Argus

Legalise Soft Drugs

A call has gone out in the South African Medical Journal for a review of the legality of psychoactive substances such as marijuana (dagga).

Professor JP van Niekerk, managing editor of the journal, said it was important for South Africa to reopen the debate about the criminalisation of these substances, and to reconsider its policies in light of the fact that war against drugs in South Africa had failed.

It was time to face reality, the professor added, and rationally debate the question of decriminalisation.

“It makes no sense to legalise the use of alcohol and tobacco, but not the less dangerous substances like marijuana,” Van Niekerk argued.

He said that by decriminalising drugs there could be better control, and that the country could gain revenue from it through taxation.

He argued further that the role of criminal drug dealers could be significantly reduced.

Van Niekerk believes that improved state control, as is the case with tobacco and alcohol, could also be applied in the control of drugs in South Africa.

The high prices of illegal drugs, he said, often forced those dependent on them into criminal activities, including drug peddling and robbery, to finance their addiction.

On the other hand, he added, one of the reasons many people stopped smoking was because the price of tobacco was increased.

Controlling prices in this way was one of the mechanisms that could be used to manage the problem.

Van Niekerk said the way in which the drug scourge was being “fought” was actually making the drugs more valuable, and was attracting more participants to the illicit drug economy.

If they were decriminalised, he argued, drugs could be better controlled and the money saved could be used for education about the harm caused by drugs, and for the rehabilitation of addicts.

Van Niekerk said that while the use of drugs may be a vice, it should not be considered a crime - so making criminals of a large proportion of South Africa’s population.

“It is easier for youngsters to buy drugs than it is for them to buy cigarettes, because they would be asked for their ages. If the same could be done with drugs, then that would mean more difficult access to them,” he said.

When asked whether he believed the idea would work in South Africa, Van Niekerk answered that he did.

He added that evidence showed that the country’s current policies to fight the war on drugs were not working, with more and more people accessing drugs.

A recent study done by the SA Medical Research Council on drug abuse in the Western Cape showed that alcohol was among the worst abused substances, with Khayelitsha singled out as the area of the province where it was most abused. (from IOL)

Man arrested with R19 million Cocaine

A man was caught with cocaine with an estimated street value of R19m in Beaufort West on Thursday, Western Cape police said.

Police stopped and searched a yellow Volvo bus near a garage in the town shortly after 02:00, Captain Frederick van Wyk said.

Police sniffer dogs found a black bag in the luggage compartment. When police asked for the owner of the bag, one man tried to run away.

He was arrested and asked to open the bag. Inside police found several kilograms of cocaine.

In a separate incident police recovered dagga with a street value of R60 000 after they stopped and searched a cream-coloured Toyota Cressida on Wednesday evening.

Two men, aged 26 and 26, were arrested when six bags of dagga weighing 60kg were found.

All three men were expected to appear in the Beaufort West Magistrate's Court on Friday. (from News24)

Zuma confronts Mitchells Plain drugs saga

President Jacob Zuma has called for “concerted action” to deal with the abuse of alcohol and drugs in Mitchells Plain.

Zuma said in a speech at the Sultan Bahu Treatment Centre in Mitchells Plain on Tuesday that he was concerned that the abuse of alcohol and drugs was becoming a fashionable part of the lives of “some” children.

“Statistics indicate that the age of experimentation with drugs is nine years, which is way too disturbing,” Zuma said in the speech which was attended by Western Cape Premier Helen Zille.

“We have seen in some communities that some children drink alcohol on their way to school.

“This calls for concerted action amongst all of us as parents and community members. We must work together to curb the spread of substance abuse in our communities.”

Zuma said the government had a duty to build recreational facilities and improve the quality of life for communities, so that poverty did not breed the “proliferation of drugs and the abuse of other substances”.

“We are pleased to note action being taken by communities and individuals to fight substance abuse and educate our children and families.

Zuma said he was concerned about the high numbers of pregnant women who were abusing alcohol on farms in the Western Cape and parts of the Northern Cape.

“The impact on the unborn child is devastating,” he said.

Zuma said most in-patient treatment centres were not accessible to majority of patients and were found mostly in the cities.

“We therefore must find a way of extending them to rural and informal settlements, especially in the light of rising demand for treatment services,” he said.

“However, the out-patient treatment services are also available, and have ensured that patients receive treatment while remaining in their communities and families.”

- Sapa

Intransigent shebeen owners may lose home

For years the city couple ran an illegal shebeen from their home, and the police raided them 52 times.

Then the National Director of Public Prosecutions decided that the only solution to the illicit trade was to seize their home, and won the subsequent court case.

But now the couple, who have two school-going children who live with them, are appealing the judgment to a full Bench at the Western Cape High Court in a bid to save what they say is their family home, their children’s inheritance and their livelihood. The couple, Hilda and Edward van der Burg, from Athlone, have been selling liquor illegally since 2001 and despite repeated raids by police, have continued doing so.

The State has argued that having the couple forfeit the house, which is located next to a school and a church, is the only way to stop them from selling the liquor.

The Van der Burgs had apparently applied for a liquor licence previously but this was not approved.

In the Western Cape High Court on Friday, their attorney, Gregory Derris, argued that because the couple had never been imprisoned and were only ever issued with fines, it had not been a strong enough deterrent to keep them from selling the liquor.

But Judge Jeanette Traverso interjected, saying: “These are grown-up people we’re talking about. They had warnings, they were convicted and sentenced. They’re not puppies that run around.

“Police conducted 52 operations against them. I’ve been around for 65 years and the police haven’t had any operations against me.”

Judge Chantal Fortuin also questioned whether the couple deserved to keep the house at all after their blatant disregard for the law.

“But there is a family home that is being conducted here as well,” said Derris.

“If the property is taken, it will affect the living arrangement of the entire family. This is not just a shebeen. It’s a family home, and that is better than living on the street.

“They haven’t simply shown a blatant disregard for the law, they have a hand-to-mouth existence.”

Geoff Budlender, for the National Director of Public Prosecutions, however, told the court that while the children may lose out on their inheritance, there were no indications that they may be left homeless, as the couple claimed they earned R2 000 a week from their vegetable stall.

He said it was necessary for the court to send out the message that if you conduct illegal business from your home, your house could be seized.

“These are people who are living in a shebeen, not a shebeen being run from a home,” said Budlender, adding that the business was “popular”, “successful” and “substantial”. “Their attitude to crime has been: “I can continue carrying on with the crime as long as I pay a fine.”

“Forfeiture is the only means available to the law for ending this scenario.” (from IOL)

You have to wonder about the supply side of the equation. Where is the shebeen getting its booze from? Solve that problem and the shebeen would stay closed when the police close it down.