mandrax also know as Ndanda or buttons by locals is actually not so popular in SA these days. Crack, followed by white heroin smoking, followed by methamp&methcathinone are takin over rapidly. Crack is appearing everywhere. From private schools to rural townships.
Wow, another S African...I think that makes 3 of us altogether on this board, plus an ex-pat.
Yeah, to be honest I don't personally know anyone who uses it any more except 1 group of guys who I don't hang with - but I didn't really ever hang around people who used it, and they kept it secret if they did. Only 1 really good friend used to use it. It's still very common in places like Westbury (large area - won't be helpful to people trying to score, don't worry MODS) and another area in N JHB (that I won't mention). Methcathinone is by FAR the most common drug besides weed in the subburbs and most parts of town that aren't completely ghetto. The townships might be different, I know there are some decent areas there and recently certain areas have become desirable upper class areas, I don't know what goes down with regards to illicits and the underground scene.
JHB has been notorious for buttons for a lot longer than the 4-5 years that cat's been popular - try 25+ years? You still hear of huge Mandrax busts going down around the country. I think the biggest ever bust was either 2008 or 2007. A good indication that there is high demand. Search news24, you'll see a lot of recent busts. Mostly weed and/or Mx besides the SAA fiasco. I hear CT has moved almost exclusively to tik, previously Mx was the most used drug especially in the Cape flats.
I got some (suspected) Mx for the first time only recently (not that I ever tried very hard to score it before), was sold as ecstasy (actually just called pills) to me by a (usually) reliable dealer who was pretty messed up - I thought he was pill-fucked at first, his eyes were half closed which is why I bought them (even though MDMA is non existent here without good connects that know upper level dealers with the crystal). As you know pille are normally buttons which could have confused him - being Nigerian, he doesn't speak much Afrikaans so could have misinterpreted the buy to be X.
Just be careful with X tabs if you are in the area - they are stamped with a car logo that was notoriously strong E around 2002,2003. Even overseas the stamp was known and caused a lot of bad press... If you take them and go out, you'll probably wake up in the street or worse - I'm lucky, I was at home in bed watching TV waiting to (hopefully) roll so I could shower and go out. I enjoyed them, had a few which I eventually consumed. Will try again, but I'll make sure it's the proper stuff this time.