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“Hiding in plain sight: Heroin’s stealthy takeover of South Africa” reads the title of a March 2019 research study by Simone Haysom.
Fast forward four years and Wynberg residents can tell you there is nothing stealthy about it.
The proliferation of discarded needles found in public open spaces and even private gardens in Wynberg was one of the main concerns raised at a police community meeting held at Muhammadeyah Primary School on Saturday 11 March.
Ansar Salie, chair of the Wynberg Community Policing Forum (CPF), says it has become an everyday occurrence to walk down just about any street in Wynberg and see a heroin addict shooting up.
“It is happening all over, predominantly in Sector 2, the lower area of Wynberg. And if you do arrest someone for using drugs in public, the case just gets kicked out in the courts. It is seen as a misdemeanour. The police and law enforcement don’t even bother to arrest them anymore,” claims Salie.
Last week, People’s Post reported on a Wynberg church and the local Community Action Network’s (CAN) plea to local government to establish an addiction recovery programme, accessible to all in their community.
According to Reverend Graham Goodwin of Church Street Methodist, Wynberg was not dealing with a homelessness problem but an addiction problem.
He said the nearest public programme (the City of Cape Town’s Matrix Programme) is located in Parkwood Estate – which is roughly 5,2 km away.
Goodwin said heroin addicts wanting to detox also had the additional obstacle of having to wait for a bed in Stikland Hospital or one of the other state hospitals.
People’s Post asked the City if there perhaps were plans in the pipeline to bring or support a public addiction recovery programme to Wynberg.
Patricia van der Ross, Mayco member for community services and health, says the City does see clients from Wynberg, including heroin clients, accessing services at the Parkwood Matrix site.
“Many of them walk to the clinic. It is possible to get clients into the Stikland detox unit.”
Van der Ross says the delay is in getting an admission date for an inpatient centre, which most heroin clients require.
“However, it is in the waiting that the Matrix programme provides a holding space for the clients. We would encourage clients from the Wynberg area to continue accessing services at the Parkwood Matrix site,” she says.
Salie agrees that Wynberg is in dire need of a rehab centre.
But, he says, that is just one aspect of the drug problem in the area.
The other is the high number of drug dealers doing business out of Wynberg.
Another research study by Haysom found that Wynberg had become a neighbourhood where users congregate to buy and use heroin.
Haysom said the drug market was controlled by syndicates who also controlled the sex trade in the neighbourhood.
Salie says the police and law enforcement need to come to the party now.
“We can go on about why the area has become a hub for drug dealing – the drug peddling, easy access to drugs, drug addicts hoarding to Wynberg. But at the end of the day a collective effort is needed from law enforcement and the police to step up and remove these drug dealers from our neighbourhood.”
Salie says this process is taking too long and too little focus is given to it.
“There is blameshift and ‘whose responsibility it is’ going on all the time between the law enforcement agencies. ‘This is my problem, this is your problem, it is a bylaw issue.’ But these are crimes at the end of the day and both parties are custodians of crime prevention. They need to tackle it as one,” says Salie.
People’s Post asked the City’s law enforcement agencies if inroads were being made in the fight against the drug trade in Wynberg.
Metro Police spokesperson Ruth Solomons says the South African Police Service is the primary agency tasked with crime prevention.
“The City acts in support of the police. In terms of the Metro Police Department’s operations in Wynberg, between Saturday 1 October last year and Monday 10 April, they made 18 arrests – 12 were drug-related. In addition, officers issued 364 traffic fines and 88 by-law fines,” says Solomons.
Law enforcement spokesperson Wayne Dyason says from a law enforcement perspective, officers received 304 service requests, issued 409 fines for various transgressions, made 29 arrests and conducted 969 hotspot patrols.
Dyason says the drug trade is rife across the city.
“The City receives ongoing complaints from various communities. Our enforcement agencies do receive complaints from the Wynberg area, and officers do their best to respond, either through joint or autonomous operations. However, due to the many demands on our services, it is not always possible to maintain a presence in an area around the clock,” says Dyason.
According to Wynberg Police spokesperson, Captain Silvino Davids, there has been a slight increase in drug users within the police precinct in the past year.
Davids says hotspots in the area include Station Road, Lower Church Street, Main Road, the CBD, the railway station and the PTI interchange.
He adds the challenge faced by the police on this matter is that there are different dealers from different areas active in Wynberg.
Davids says integrated operations with other law enforcement agencies, which include law enforcement, Metro, and other security agencies, are held to address the current drug issue.
“These operations will take place regularly.”
