Post date: Jan 17, 2011 4:45:59 PM
HIV patients on anti-retroviral therapy under threat of drugs shortage as youth in Durban, South Africa mix marijuana with HIV drug in a combination called 'whoonga" for a new high.
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (JANUARY 14, 2011) REUTERS - 33-year old Linda Sithole has been smoking "whoonga" drugs for nearly four years. Sithole is unemployed and lives with his parents whom he occasionally steals from to feed his drug habit.
Sithole says it was very easy to start smoking whoonga, but he is struggling to fight the addiction."I have been using Whoonga drug for nearly four years now, I started using it due to peer-pressure from my friends, we heard about this drug called whoonga and we decided to try it out, I had no idea it was this difficult to quit this drug". said Linda Sithole.
Millions of South Africans with HIV face a new worry being robbed of the life-prolonging medicine by drug gangs and youths like Sithole who use it to lace a highly addictive marijuana cocktail known to its smokers as "whoonga".
As the government responsible for the world's biggest population of HIV infected people -- nearly 6 million -- prepares to make antiretroviral (ARV) drugs more widely available, authorities are trying to stamp out the illegal trade, tighten security for ARV supplies and make patients aware of the risks of theft.
Sithole says he uses money from his parents to buy the whoonga drug which costs anything from $3 on the streets, he also makes money by washing cars at the local taxi park.
"Sometimes there are people who steal, but we make money by washing cars and make a few cents there and there, or maybe you got R15 from home, we take that R15 and we combine it with R10 then we can buy this drug whoonga, I am not sure how other people in other sections get their money to buy this drug but I assume that since this is a drug, crime is involved somehow." added Sithole in a Reuters interview.
Whoonga mixtures can include rat poison and other cheap substances which smokers think enhance the high from marijuana.
Police say lacing it with powdered tablets of the antiretroviral Efavirenz, or Stocrin, has little real effect. But street users believe the HIV drug boosts whoonga's hallucinogenic properties.
"Whoonga as a drug it is known to us is a combination of marijuana as a combination of dagga, rat poison, detergent and we know that one of our ARV's is being used as a combination of that drug, we strongly discourage that because we feel it directly threatens our success in the fight against HIV/AIDS and it is one of the important drug in our base management, we wouldn't like anything that threatens it." said doctor Bright Mhlongo at an HIV/AIDS clinic in Umlazi township.
Police say "whoonga" is a relatively new drug that began to surface a few months ago in KwaZulu Natal but has also spread to a few areas. Its use has so far been limited, encouraging police to believe they can nip the problem in the bud.
But in townships in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, some HIV patients receiving the medication have been mugged and clinics robbed. Sithole's mother Dato Mthiyane say she is worried about her son's future.
"This drug is very dangerous, he has no future, this drug is so dangerous because it is mixed with poisonous products" said Dato Mthiyane.
Siphesihle Pakisa has not been smoking for over a year. The 19-year old says his new friends had really inspired him to change his old habits but says it was difficult.
"I used to do criminal activities such as house robberies so I can get money to smoke, and I would steal wherever just to get money for this drug, but as time went on Thokozani Sokhulu (friend) came along and he pointed us at the right direction as young boys in the township and we worked together to quit the drug" said Siphesihle Pakisa.
Victims have mostly stayed silent, fearing if they report thefts to police, they would be exposed as infected with HIV. It remains a stigma for many in a country where the U.N. says 5.7 million people in a population of 49 million are sufferers.
Local media have been filled with breathless reports, saying it takes just two puffs to be hooked and the whoonga craze has sparked a new level of lawlessness in the crime-ridden country.