Getting high from smoking HIV drugs in South Africa

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Don Luigi

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Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high.

Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money.

Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.

Aids patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed.

Anti-retrovirals are used to boost the immune system of people with HIV and to suppress the virus in the blood.

"I couldn't believe it, I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their school uniforms," documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"They take a pill and grind it, till it is a powder - some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana," said Ms Nhlapo. "They showed me how they roll it and smoke it," she added.

Hallucinogenic

When the South African Broadcasting Corporation documentary-maker first investigated the story, she was told to wait until school finished, so she could actually see how young some of the users were.

"I thought I was going to go to a tavern and see older drug addicts doing this, but I was shocked when I saw school children," she said.

"One who spoke to me very frankly was only 15 and the oldest person I spoke to was 21, but it's mainly youngsters, teenagers," she added.

Smoking the pills has a hallucinogenic and relaxing affect.

"When I asked them why they like doing it, they said it helps them relax and forget about their problems," said Ms Nhlapo.

"When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world," she added.

The children do not know where they are and they stop making sense.

The young users that Ms Nhlapo spoke to, get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers.

They know when the individual patients go to collect the drugs and buy them, or if they do not have any money, they steal them.

"When I was doing the story, many HIV patients were complaining that they don't get the drugs and that queues are long and it was taking a long time to access them," said Ms Nhlapo.

Widespread problem

Dr Kas Kasongo, who advises on an anti-retroviral drugs panel in South Africa, feels that there needs to be some measure of accountability or a system to be able to track the usage of drugs.

"We need pharmacists and good administrators but again it is a social problem," he said.

"I don't think our role as doctors should be to just dish out drugs, we have to make sure that these drugs are taken as recommended."

When Ms Nhlapo first came across this new drug phenomenon, she thought it was just happening in one area, among a small group of people.

"I went back to the township and then I discovered that it was something that was known in the entire township," she said.

She said it had now become a national problem in South Africa.

Dr Kasongo continued: "Not taking the optimum dose as recommended will not suppress the virus and the CD4 count will be destroyed massively and that's what we are trying to prevent by giving anti-retroviral medication."

Side-effects

Most anti-retroviral drugs can be given to both children and adults, Dr Kasongo said, however there was one exception.

"There is one that is being abused that should only be used above the age of three or four years," he added.

"Remember we are giving anti-retroviral drugs to those infected with HIV, who will eventually develop Aids.

"So, people who are healthy, that are taking this medication are exposing themselves to potential side-effects of these drugs," he added.

HIV patients are exposing themselves to huge risks by not taking the prescribed drugs as they should.

"We don't have more than 20 anti-retroviral drugs on the market and remember, they have to be used in a cocktail of at least three or four," said Dr Kasongo.

"Therefore, abusing a particular drug, whichever it is, is a concern because it can give rise to resistance to drugs within that same group," he added.

Dr Kasongo stressed that it will take a huge team effort, involving the government, social workers and education authorities to combat the problem.

"It is well organised, no matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs," said Ms Nhlapo.
Click to expand...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7768059.stm
 
I may have missed it and i'm too lazy to re-read it but does anyone know what chemical/s is in these pills?
 
This kind of seems like another jenkem scare, but I dunno, this article seems legit. I just don't really see how you could get high off HIV medication.
 
Well I guess you can get high off many medications that seem innocent enough, the same with things that are seemingly innocent in nature. I mean who would have thought you could get high from smoking the skin of a Colorado River Toad?

Though I am very curious as to what type of chemicals are in these medications, shocked me when I read it, that's why I posted. The BBC don't really publish such bullshit as Jenkem...they have integrity...ok that's a pile of shite :D

EDIT: Just did a search and they did indeed do a story on Jenkem.
 
Getting high on HIV drugs in S Africa

Alka Marwaha
BBC News

A child with HIV takes her medicine
Anti-retrovirals are for boosting the immune system of people with HIV

Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high.

Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money.

Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.

Aids patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed.

Anti-retrovirals are used to boost the immune system of people with HIV and to suppress the virus in the blood.

"I couldn't believe it. I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their school uniforms," documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"They take a pill and grind it, until it is a powder. Some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana," said Ms Nhlapo. "They showed me how they roll it and smoke it."

Hallucinogenic

When the South African Broadcasting Corporation documentary-maker first investigated the story, she was told to wait until school finished, so she could actually see how young some of the users were.

Cannabis marijuana plants
The pills are crushed and mixed with other ingredients, like marijuana

"I thought I was going to go to a tavern and see older drug addicts doing this, but I was shocked when I saw school children," she said.

"One who spoke to me very frankly was only 15 and the oldest person I spoke to was 21, but it's mainly youngsters, teenagers."

Smoking the pills has a hallucinogenic and relaxing affect.

"When I asked them why they like doing it, they said it helps them relax and forget about their problems," said Ms Nhlapo.

"When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world," she added.

The children do not know where they are and they stop making sense.

The young users that Ms Nhlapo spoke to get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers.

They know when the individual patients go to collect the drugs and buy them, or if they do not have any money, they steal them.

"When I was doing the story, many HIV patients were complaining that they don't get the drugs and that queues are long and it was taking a long time to access them," said Ms Nhlapo.

Widespread problem

Dr Kas Kasongo, who advises on an anti-retroviral drugs panel in South Africa, feels that there needs to be some measure of accountability or a system to be able to track the usage of drugs.

"We need pharmacists and good administrators but again it is a social problem," he said.

"I don't think our role as doctors should be to just dish out drugs. We have to make sure that these drugs are taken as recommended."

When Ms Nhlapo first came across this new drug phenomenon, she thought it was just happening in one area, among a small group of people.

"I went back to the township and then I discovered that it was something that was known in the entire township," she said.

It had now become a national problem in South Africa, she added.

Dr Kasongo continued: "Not taking the optimum dose as recommended will not suppress the virus and the CD4 count will be destroyed massively and that's what we are trying to prevent by giving anti-retroviral medication."

Side-effects

Most anti-retroviral drugs can be given to both children and adults, Dr Kasongo said. But there was one exception.

"There is one that is being abused that should only be used above the age of three or four years," he added.

"Remember we are giving anti-retroviral drugs to those infected with HIV, who will eventually develop Aids.

"So, people who are healthy, that are taking this medication are exposing themselves to potential side-effects of these drugs," he added.


No matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs
Tooli Nhlapo

HIV patients are exposing themselves to huge risks by not taking the prescribed drugs as they should, he warned.

"We don't have more than 20 anti-retroviral drugs on the market and remember, they have to be used in a cocktail of at least three or four," said Dr Kasongo.

"Therefore, abusing a particular drug, whichever it is, is a concern because it can give rise to resistance to drugs within that same group," he added.

Dr Kasongo stressed that it will take a huge team effort, involving the government, social workers and education authorities to combat the problem.

"It is well organised, no matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs," said Ms Nhlapo.

Outlook is broadcast on BBC World Service Monday till Friday at 1330 GMT.

You can also listen to Outlook online at BBC World Service.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7768059.stm
Click to expand...

Madness! Surely this can not be healthy
 
Can someone explain the pharmacology of this? I tsounds like the same hysterical bullshit we got here in the states of people using embalming fluid to dip joints in.
 
Damn thats crazy, aids patients smoking their medication. And i thought people huffing butane was crazy when I heard about it
 
this sounds very jenkem-esque. i dont believe it at all. some village kids were fucking with a gullible reporter. plus the effects and the r.o.a (mixing with green and smoking) sounds too much like how they smoke ludes. i bet that's what the reporter saw them smoking. they were just fucking with her and said they were hiv meds.

and
The young users that Ms Nhlapo spoke to get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers.
Click to expand...
"It is well organised, no matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs," said Ms Nhlapo.
Click to expand...
eh
 
You never know, their are only 20 Anti-retroviral drugs out there HIV unless I'm wrong and the report is wrong. Maybe one of them has psychoactive effects when vaporized/smoked? Very well possible. Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions. Lets wait to find out more if possible to rule out EVERYTHING first.
 
I wouldn't put it past these idiots in this country, I have actually seen crazier things here.
 
Perhaps you might want to clear out your stash then?

Abuse of Efavirenz is well documented at this point, and the psychiatric symptoms from its use are very common, but a mechanism is not understood.

I suspect it's a GABAergic (some of which are hallucinogenic- zolpidem, muscimol) but that's just a hunch.
 
Hallucinogenic HIV medication billed as newest drug craze in S. Africa

'No Turning Back': Teens Abuse HIV Drugs
Teens in South Africa Smoke Anti-Retroviral Drug Efavirenz for Cheap High

By JIM SCIUTTO
DURBAN, South Africa, April 6, 2009—

A drug intended to treat HIV and AIDS is sweeping the townships of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is cheap and powerfully addictive.

"Nightline" witnessed the drug's effects upclose on a 17-year-old addict we're calling Joshua to protect his identity. A high school junior from a middle-class neighborhood in Durban, he said his parents would kick him out of the house if they knew. And yet he smokes the drug every day before and after class, despite his dreams of becoming a doctor.

"Once you've first started there's no turning back," he said, adding that he wants to stop using but can't.

When he uses, "it feels like you got no problem at all. Like yesterday if you killed a person and you smoked this thing you wouldn't remember that you killed a person yesterday."

The drug Joshua and his friends are abusing is the anti-retroviral Efavirenz. When taken properly, it's part of a lifesaving treatment for HIV patients. When crushed and smoked, it's a cheap high with no medical benefit.

When the teenagers finished smoking, they didn't have to hide. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to be aware of what they're doing, and they say the same was true when they went to purchase the drug.

South Africa has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world and KwaZulu-Natal province has the highest rate in South Africa -- 40 percent. For the infected, anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs, are the only things standing between life and a painful death.

The drug is so cheap and plentiful, thanks in part to a well-meaning effort by the American government to distribute ARV', a program that has helped extend the lives of more than 500,000 AIDS patients.

But as the medical director of one U.S.-funded clinic said, ARV abuse is threatening to turn an HIV success story into a health crisis.

"It's extremely frustrating," said Dr. Njabulo Masabo, from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "It's extremely, you know, discouraging because on one end you're trying to fight this epidemic that has ravaged the world so much ... the results are catastrophic."

Drug Dealer: 'They Shouldn't Blame Me'

How ARV abuse began is uncertain. Taken as prescribed, Efavirenz can cause vivid dreams. Someone -- possibly an HIV patient experimenting -- discovered that smoking the drug greatly enhances those hallucinations.

Today, some of the illegal drugs come from HIV patients selling their own lifesaving medication for profit. Others are stolen from patients or pharmacies.

Pharmacies in the townships have banklike security. The drugs are kept behind vault doors, because they have an enormous black market value. Just one container of the ARVs is worth $60, and a whole shelf is worth $3,000.

Driving through the townships, a local AIDS health worker named Zola Shezi showed us the extent of the black market in ARVs. She saw drug dens everywhere; one she identified had children playing right outside.

"Just here, the man he owns the house, he built all these rooms & one, there's one room where his customers stay and crush and do things."

The few police we saw did nothing.

In just three years, ARVs have grown from a niche drug abused by a small number of HIV patients into a widespread addiction, increasingly among young people.

Many ARV abusers are young students, and in a neighborhood like the one we visited you'll find dealers on almost every street, selling to students during school hours and just after.

In his house that doubles as a drug den, we met one of the dealers face-to-face. Dinda -- he gave us a false name to hide his identity -- said he earns many times what he could make, if he could find a job.

He acknowledged that the drugs are meant for people with HIV, but said "nobody can give me that money while I'm sitting at home; I have to go and do something for money."

Recounting a story that's not unusual in the area, he said he's the only one of eight siblings still alive. His siblings were all victims of HIV or gang violence, leaving him to take care of a large, extended family.

"I'm unemployed, four of these years I am not working, if I can stop this we can all suffer," he said. "So they shouldn't blame me for what I'm trying to make a living out of."

HIV Could Build Resistance to Medication

For families of abusers, it's a very different story. ARVs are powerful enough to turn even young people into violent addicts. We met Dudu, who told us her 21-year-old son steals from her to pay for his habit.

"Sometimes if I said I'm going to call the police he said he going to kill me," she said. "I believe him."

Now, South Africa may soon face a deadly consequence of ARV addiction. By smoking the drug, abusers are in effect giving HIV a small taste of anti-retroviral medication -- not enough to kill the virus, but enough for it to potentially develop resistance to the drug.

It's like "educating the HIV," said Masabo. "And so you'll find that we have a second epidemic emerging, an epidemic that we cannot control with the current drug that we have."

Back in the drug den, the teenage addict Joshua told us what happens to HIV patients isn't his problem.

"I feel guilty sometimes, but hey. I know what I'm doing is wrong, but what I've started I must carry on."

The cemeteries of South Africa are already crowded with victims of HIV. Now, a new danger is threatening to put the country's best defense up in smoke.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
Click to expand...
Source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7227982&page=1
 
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