Maria Haipinge
“Don’t even try it. The moment you use it, you will want more and the more you want it, you will commit crimes just to get money to buy drugs.”
This is the warning by detective sergeant Haufiku Silva of the Khomas Police Drug Law-Enforcement Unit when he spoke to International Training College-Lingua students as part of the college’s annual Health and Safety Awareness Week currently underway under the theme ‘My Health, My Safety, My responsibility’.
Silva was accompanied by colleagues Elifas Amukwaya and Menas Endjala, and they displayed several substances such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin during their talks with students.
Urging all students to shun drugs, they spoke about drug dealing, drug use, drug prices, how to distinguish between drugs, and also the punishments meted out against anyone found in possession of or dealing in drugs.
Business administration student Adalgiso Pambasange (25) told Youth Corner that one of the worst aftermaths is “losing oneself”.
According to him, drug and alcohol abuse usually starts at a young age when youngsters or teenagers are still at the beginning of their growing and learning phase.
“You really don’t understand the effects and consequences drugs and alcohol have on your life because you still don’t really know yourself,” he explained.
Having had experience with alcohol abuse, Pambasange said he understands why individuals consume drugs and alcohol due to reasons such as peer pressure and stress.
He further highlighted how it can lead to a person losing her/his identity, saying: “When you start using drugs and alcohol, it takes you out of your home, and you become more of a street person. You forget your roots, and you forget your purpose in life”.
Pambasange said the intake of substances such as drugs and alcohol starts in small quantities and ends in larger quantities, and effectively with time, they damage the mind and body.
He thus advised his peers to fight for and stay true to their identity, and encouraged those with addiction problems to seek help from health practitioners and to also make an effort to become informed.
Having had a family member who suffered drug abuse, fellow student William Nitschke listed the effects of drugs and alcohol use as aggressiveness, impaired judgement, loss of self-control, paranoia and addiction.
He added that the worst outcomes from the abuse of substances are vehicle accidents, theft of goods and murdering for money.
Nitschke (19), who studies accounting and finance at Lingua, sees health awareness initiatives on drugs and alcohol as a great opportunity to shape the community and educate the youth.
Sharing her testimony at the event, Johanna Angula, an ex-alcoholic and drug abuser and ex-prostitute for over eight years, said she had to work hard to transform herself.
“Today, I am Johanna, but before they used to call me “daai hoer or daai hond”. That was my name because of the life I chose to live,” she narrated.
Now repented, Angula is living ‘clean’ and is a great example that any obstacle can be overcome. She thus urged the youth to refrain from drugs and alcohol as it will destroy their lives.