Abalone poaching is "out of control" and it is fuelling Cape Town's drug war. Poaching syndicates are paying small fishing communities in drugs to catch abalone for them, according to the Western Cape standing committee chairman for economic opportunities, tourism and agriculture, Beverley Schäfer.Drug use among schoolchildren in Kleinmond has increased by 70% since 2014, according to a survey by abalone farming company Abagold."In 2014 one of our employees got stabbed to death by a youngster allegedly under the influence of tik, and by then we started enquiring whether there was a problem in the Overstrand area," said Abagold human resources director Lou-Anne Lubbe.Meanwhile, the Hawks, the police K9 unit and the Department of Fisheries and Forestry (Daff) arrested a Chinese man and a Zimbabwean on Tuesday and seized abalone worth R4.5-million from a smallholding in Gordon's Bay.Hawks spokesman Captain Lloyd Ramovha said smallholdings were often used to process tens of thousands of poached abalone for the international market.Schäfer told The Times that Daff auctioned the seized abalone, something Lubbe said was "morally inappropriate" since it made the department a beneficiary of poaching. Daff spokesman Bomikazi Molapo said poaching was a huge concern to the department."That is why cabinet instructed all law enforcement partners to work jointly to deal with the increase."Said Lubbe: "We do not support the sale of confiscated abalone. There needs to be another route for Daff to fund itself and that certainly cannot come from illegally poached abalone, which we understand has a direct link to the drug trade."Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith said in some cases the "personalities" in the drug industry were also big players in the poaching of abalone."Our marine unit often ends up trying to address the same people that the drug and gang task team are trying to address," said Smith...