“The ingredients are 100% disclosed.”

It’s a mistake, says a woman who shared her worry about her son drinking Dragon energy drink on social media. “I did not think anyone would read it,” a crying Vicky Hefer tells Melkbos.net after her complaints about the energy drink went viral. “I shouldn’t have done it. I was not thinking clearly. “I thought five people would see it. I am very sorry. I feel so ashamed. I thought it was like complaining about Coke or pizzas.”

Hefer, who admits to not liking energy drinks on the whole, wrote about her suspicions that her 14-year-old son ingested morphine/opiates in his energy drink.

‘I was upset when I wrote that’
She says she had him tested, and that a small amount of opiates showed in his urine. But now she is not certain anymore where the opiates came from. Initially she had thought that her son could have got hold of her tablets but her doctor said they contain no opiates; then someone mentioned that his energy drink could have been tampered with. The only way to get to the bottom of what has become a nightmare for Hefer is to have her son tested again, she says.

“I was upset when I wrote that,” she tells Melkbos.net over the phone from Johannesburg. She is in shock over how far her WhatsApp message has spread. It has spread through the country, and up the West Coast, and surfaced on community forums where worried moms are asking to be updated about the case. “I never knew it would go so far. It’s turning into a very bad nightmare so quickly,” says Hefer.

Rubbished the allegations
Dragon’s financial director Francois Bezuidenhout rubbished any claims about opiates being present in the energy drink. ”Legislation requires that energy drink producers disclose the contents of the energy drink to the gram,” Bezuidenhout says. “The ingredients are 100% disclosed. We are a South African success story. We have spent ten years building our product and brand. There is absolutely nothing illegal in our energy drink.”