(Image Source: Sky News)
BY SAMUEL JOSEPH
You're watching multisource global video news analysis from Newsy/
Whoonga’s the latest deadly South African drug craze. It’s a dangerous cocktail of anti-retrovirals, or ARVs, used to treat AIDS, plus marijuana, detergent and even -- rat poison. It supposedly gives a powerful high. Sky News covers the devastating impact it’s had on the country’s Eastern Cape.
Emma Hurd: “People with H.I.V. are being preyed on for their medication, threatening the country’s battle against AIDS. At this one small clinic near Durban, dozens of patients are being robbed every week.
Clinic Worker: When those people are going out of the clinic, they are mugged outside. They are threatened.”
Whoonga is highly addictive, with many becoming hooked after just one dose. A 2010 report from Media Global describes the drastic measures addicts will take to get the drug.
“The South African government’s anti-retroviral policy allows all HIV positive people to gain access to the anti-retroviral treatment for free. In some instances users are deliberately trying to infect themselves with HIV to receive the free medication...”
Despite all this, dealers may be lying about ARVs being an ingredient. Top News reports, even if they are, the anti-retrovirals might not be responsible for the high.
“Whoonga smokers may be fooling themselves into believing the AIDS drugs are giving them a high, when it''s really some other ingredient...”
So far whoonga has only invaded the Eastern Cape, but Street News says...
“... it may be only a matter of time before whoonga hits the Western Cape. It is believed that syndicates are operating in KZN, Gauteng, the Eastern and the Western Cape...”
There’s not much research on the spread of whoonga and authorities are struggling to contain the problem.
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