Life Stories

Click on the link below to download our cartoon about the harms of drug addiction. Make copies of our cartoons and distribute them at school, work, and in your community!

At the age of 13 I started smoking cigarettes as I wanted to fit in with the group I was involved with. Smoking cigarettes developed into smoking dagga. I then started taking ecstasy at night clubs where I would also drink alcohol. That’s when my life really started falling apart!

In 2016, I was caught in possession of crack cocaine. Fortunately, my uncle bailed me out for R5000. Things got worse and I started stealing from home, shops, robbing people and hijacking cars. My Grandmother tried to intervene. My mother would cry a lot because of my lifestyle and the community was getting tired of me. It came to a point where I had to make a decision…

Click on the link below to download our cartoon about the harms of drug addiction. Make copies of our cartoons and distribute them at school, work, and in your community!

Click on the link below to download our cartoon about the harms of drug addiction. Make copies of our cartoons and distribute them at school, work, and in your community!

When I arrived at the University of Johannesburg things went quite well at first, but made a turn for the worse. I started drinking alcohol excessively, I began smoking dagga and soon I progressed to using other drugs as well.

?My name is Tom* and I first smoked dagga when I was 13 years old. By the time I reached matric, at the age of 17, I was fully addicted to dagga and I continued to smoke until the age of 31.

Dagga helped me to ignore the responsibilities of daily life and took hold of me quickly. As my addiction grew, I began to experience the dark side of a drug which many claim is ‘soft’ and the use of which is often described as harmless fun.

Previously I had been a top sportsman, taking part in rugby, cricket, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, golf, athletics, cycling and wrestling and now I couldn’t even run 100m without wanting to vomit because of my dagga habit. Before dagga I used to be a top performer at school, always at the top of my grade.

Despite going to Bible Class every Saturday and church every Sunday, by the time I was 14 I had started smoking cigarettes and was having the occasional beer, which I would steal from my father’s secret stash in the garage.