The street price of Mandrax is set to go down after the theft of tablets worth three billion rand which police seized in a world-record raid in 2002. On Tuesday it was reported that chemicals used to manufacture Mandrax, and confiscated during the biggest drug bust in the world, had been stolen.
However, it was three billion rand's worth of actual Mandrax - ready for street sale - that was taken and not the chemicals used in the manufacture process, as was reported. Two weeks ago a group of armed robbers made off with the drugs confiscated by detectives in a raid on a Douglasdale property linked to the Mothiba brothers, who are both in custody and awaiting trial. Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini said a gang of men broke into the police vehicle storage facility in Alrode on the East Rand on January 8. "They held up two guards and broke through a wall, which gave them access to a safe where the drugs were being kept," he said.
Bobby Hamman, director of Drug Wise, said the theft probably meant that the stolen Mandrax would go back on to the streets and "back into exactly the same hands". "It came out of a police storage facility, so one would be inclined to believe that some kind of collusion was involved. "But at the end of the day it is likely to cause a decrease in the price, and there will just be a whole lot more available," Hamman said. According to research published by the Medical Research Council regarding drug usage and the costs surrounding substance abuse, the street cost of Mandrax in Cape Town - where it is most commonly used - is currently between R20 and R45 per tablet.
Hamman said, however, that he felt the new flood of Mandrax on the street market was unlikely to have a huge impact on the present trade.
Source: IoL
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