The report also noted that alcohol abuse and drug addiction cost the country’s economy 20 billion Rand a year in the form of accidents, injuries, assaults and treatment.

Southern Africa UN office representative for Drugs and Crime, Dr Jonathan Lucas, said South Africa did not have the capacity to fight drug trafficking.

He said in addition to West African, mainly Nigerian, drug peddlers, there had been an influx of Asian drugs cartels.

According to the deputy chairman of the Central Drug Authority, David Bayever, the report was based on studies by the Medical Research Council, the SA Red Cross and the police.

“Drug use in South Africa is extremely serious and is twice the world norm,” said Bayever.

He said that eight percent of the population aged between 12 and 64 was addicted to dagga, as opposed to a four percent average in other countries. Drug rehabilitation centres struggle to cope with the scourge of abuse. They can accommodate only 17,500 patients a year.

The government report said that 20 percent of dagga smokers were boys under 16 and 7 percent were girls. However, seven percent of both boys and girls abused heroin, mandrax, cocaine, and tik.

Children

Children who smoked dagga were almost four times more likely to be stabbed at school than those who did not. Those who drank alcohol were twice as likely to be stabbed.
About 40 percent of child dagga smokers reported having had sex, compared with 5 percent of non-smokers. Thirty percent of child drinkers had sex, compared with 3 percent of those who did not drink.

Bayever said the dagga-abuse figures were “only the tip of the iceberg,” given that the problem was seriously under-reported.

The country also has the most abusers of amphetamine-type stimulants, the most common being tik, with double the percentage of addicts than other countries.

In addition to the 1.97million alcoholics in South Africa, about 3.2million people are “risky drinkers” who consume large amounts of alcohol at weekends.

The cost of heavy drinking included 7,000 lives taken by drunken drivers every year. The department of social development said that, though 59 percent of people aged between 12 and 64 do not drink, at least 37 percent are “binge drinkers.”