Schoolchildren in South Africa are reportedly using anti-retroviral drugs intended for combating HIV/AIDS as a recreational drug for hallucinogenic and relaxing effects.
HIV patients and even some health care workers are selling the drugs for extra money. Aids patients are also smoking the drugs, meant to boost the immune system and suppress HIV levels, instead of taking them as prescribed.
The teens take the anti-retroviral drugs, grind them into a powder, then mix it with either marijuana or painkillers, and smoke it. “When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world,” says shocked BBC documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo.
“When I asked them why they like doing it, they said it helps them relax and forget about their problems,” said Nhlapo, who says the problem is a national one. “I went back to the township and then I discovered that it was something that was known in the entire township,” she said.
Dr Kas Kasongo, who advises on a South African anti-retroviral drugs panel, says doctors need to be more accountable on how the drugs they administer are taken. “We need pharmacists and good administrators but again it is a social problem,” he said, adding that healthy people taking the drugs put themselves at risk for their powerful side effects, such as nausea and vomitting.
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