Johannesburg, January 14: Millions of South Africans with HIV face a new worry — being robbed of life-prolonging medicine by drug gangs who use it to lace a highly addictive marijuana cocktail known to its smokers as “whoonga”.
As the government responsible for 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.
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.
“It is a relatively new drug that began to surface a few months ago and fortunately for now, is confined to a few areas,” Vish Naidoo, spokesman for the national police agency, said of the ARV-laced doses of whoonga selling for $2 or $3 a hit.
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 the country.
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.
-Agencies