Whoonga: HIV antiretrovirals used as narcotics in South Africa
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As it turns out the antiretroviral drugs marketed by multinational pharmaceutical companies as a treatment for HIV are actually highly addictive narcotics:
Whoonga, as it's known, is a substance being smoked in poor township communities around Durban, and it's popping up in other parts of the country as well.
Drug-taking is commonplace in the townships - what else do you do if you're unskilled, uneducated and unemployed, as so many are?
Backroom experimentation produces an ever-changing array of concoctions that offer a cheap and lethal high.
What makes whoonga different - a fine white powder, added to marijuana and smoked - is its composition.
It's a blend of detergent powder, rat poison and, crucially, crushed up ARVs, or antiretroviral drugs distributed free to HIV sufferers.
With South Africa finally making inroads in the battle against HIV and Aids after years of denialism, this is a dreadful blow.
Whoonga is cheap, bought from a dealer for just 20 rand or $3 a hit. But 40 per cent of all South Africans survive on little more than $2 a day.
The average jobless whoonga user needs multiple hits to get through the day, so for many crime becomes the only way to secure a regular supply.
Worst of all, it means people in need of ARVs to save or prolong their lives are sometimes going without.
They're being mugged for their pills as they leave the clinic.
Whoonga is basically just smoked ARVs, most commonly Efavirenz (brand name Sustiva & Stocrin). Regardless of media hype about how it's consumed and any supposed additives, television news footage clearly shows a crushed tablet being smoked in a handrolled tobacco cigarette.
And of course Whoonga is surrounded by all the drug-war-retoric about the use and abuse of recreational substances. But what the media has yet to mention, if these drugs are so addictive and destructive, surely there must be a better treatment for HIV?!
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Recently @ DoseNation
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This is a travesty given that many people gave their monies to the project named PROJECT WHOONGA to help those overcommed by this drug, GUESS WHAT PEOPLE, THOSE PEOPLE ARE STILL CAOUGHT IN THAT DRUG IN THE VERRY SAME STATE THAT THE REAL FOUNDER OF THE PROJECT GOT THEM IN, IN DRUGS, SOME HAVE RAPED AND ARE INCOSSARATED AND SOME HAVE ROBBED AND KILLED, THE STARRING IN THAT MOVIE THAMI LANGA AND OTHERS WENT BACK TO THE SAME PERSON WHO WAS ACCUSED OF STEALING MONEY MR MOLEFE AND SEEKED HIS ASSISTANCE AND ARE NOW CLEAN when in the meantime THOKOZANI SOKHULU & HIS BROTHER IN_LAW VUMANI GWALA HAVE taken up posts in the EThekwini Municipalities EPWP wing, and the people that they were meant to help are suffering......... 074 357 7711 Thami Langa, 078 009 1181 Sifiso Mafas these are some of the guys that were in the original project before Thokozani and Vumani placed their families in the project and pushed everyone out........ where is ENFORCE SECURITY SERVICES now and the WARD 20 COUNCILLOR Sifiso Zungu who kicked a guy that was going to help South Africa fight this drug out of his Project..... I SURELY CURSE ENFORCE, VUMANI GWALA, THOKOZANI SOKHULU AND SIFISO ZUNGU for lending South Africa in the hands of this deadly drug....
In South Africa it has been custom to mix ganja with mandrax for long time.
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