Drug use rising among youth

Morapedi said youth aged between 25 and 30 years are getting more and more involved in drugs.  "This is a cause for great concern because most of them either sell or frequently smoke which is not good for their health as well as the country's economy.  The moment they start taking drugs such as dagga, they end up losing their minds.  Some of them end up at mental hospitals while those employed lose their jobs, thus affecting the economy," he said.

He said even though it is mostly out of school youth that are involved in drugs, he is not ruling out that school-going students could be abusing substances as well.  "For school students we are doing all we can to address them about the dangers of using drugs. We have programmes that we are conducting in conjunction with schools to raise drug awareness," he said.