"Whoonga" Drug: A New Twist in South Africa's AIDS War

Drug users in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province are diverting antiretroviral pills intended for AIDS patients and mixing them in illicit concoctions to get high, authorities and health experts say. So far, the practice of smoking the ARV-laced mixture called "whoonga" has been limited to the eastern part of the province. AIDS and addiction specialists hope it does not spread.

KwaZulu-Natal police first noticed whoonga two or three years ago, when gangs began stealing ARVs from patients as they left hospitals, said Vincent Ndunge, a police spokesperson. Users initially smoked the crushed ARVs, but later began adding other substances, he said. Marijuana is one preferred component.

Some patients sell their ARVs for use in whoonga, and AIDS clinics also have been robbed, said Carol du Toit of South Africa's National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Staff members of her private organization are seeing an increase in whoonga users, with many testing positive for heroin.

Whoonga users may be getting high from some other ingredient in the mix rather than from the ARVs, suggests Dr. Njabulo Mabaso, an AIDS expert. Drug dealers have been suspected of cutting their whoonga with many substances, including soap powder and rat poison, to stretch their supply. There is no evidence that ARVs are addictive per se or enhance the marijuana high.

"We are seeing the use of whoonga in communities and it's very widespread," said Lihle Dlamini of the Treatment Action Campaign advocacy group. Dealers "are taking this treatment that is supposed to assist people living with HIV and abusing it," she said.

"The main problem is unemployment," said Thokozani Sokhulu, who founded "Project Whoonga" this year to help rehabilitate users and help them find jobs or training. "It's when they're hanging around all day with nothing to do -- that's when they get hooked."

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