Hoerskool Elspark, a high school in Germiston in Ekurhuleni has roped in a team of experts to help fight the scourge of dagga use among its learners.

This comes as the school has indicated that it has recorded more than 50 dagga-related cases among its learners since the start of the year.

This was revealed by the school's acting principal Johan Visser during the launch of the school's anti-dagga campaign alongside anti-drug abuse organisation, the World Changers Candidates on Friday ahead of the first term school holidays.

The campaign was launched as part of the "Say No to 4/20" (20 April) a date now associated with "Dagga Day", which has given birth to dagga use among high school learners across the country.

"We have been having a few issues in the past few years with drugs and specifically dagga becoming a big problem with our learners.

"Because of the laws that allow dagga use, kids now think it is okay to smoke dagga and when they come to school, they influence one another...This affects their ability to study and their whole emotional being and they become aggressive...So, we have partnered with World Changers Candidates, an organisation that works with learners affected by dagga," Visser said.

He revealed that at the least, the school holds no less than four dagga-related hearings and disciplinary processes against learners per week.

"We have come to a point where we have four to five hearings a day, and the majority of that is dagga. We have met with this group who are now assisting us with this new programme as they have a 99% success rate. This will help us a lot to get our learners off drugs. We also want to get parents involved because with most of our kids, parents are not involved," he stated.

Ahead of the 4/20 phenomenon, chairperson of World Changers Candidate, Lucas Mahlakgane who has worked with other schools affected by dagga abuse before said when he heard about the struggles faced by the school, he immediately wanted to get involved in helping the school fight the scourge of dagga abuse within its premises.

In 2022, after a video of 36 learners captured smoking dagga, Mahlakgane and his team stepped in and assisted the learners overcome their dagga addiction with some of the learners taken through an extensive rehabilitation and mentorship programme.

"In response to this phenomenon, we have launched a month-long campaign in partnership with Hoerskool Elspark. We understand that the transition from primary to high school remains a vulnerable period for grade 7 learners entering grade 8 with drug laced edibles like space cookies sold near schools and social media glamourising substance use, proactive measures in this regard are critical," he said.

Noma Ndabula, chairperson of the school's governing body and social worker social worker indicated that the dagga issue has become a big problem she and the school are tasked with fighting.

"We are facing a big dagga problem and when World Changers Candidates became aware, we saw it fit to bring them on board to help us with combatting drug addiction. What is even more painful is that learners from the ages of 13 are taking dagga and some of them are girls which is even more painful. Through this programme, we are hopeful that it will help us keep our learners clean and free from drugs," she added.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za