Getting high on HIV drugs in South Africa

According to this BBC News article, 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. Apparently this has now become a national problem in South Africa.

Documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme that the young users that she spoke to get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers, and that 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. She also said that when she 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. "It is well organised, no matter how high they are, they do not tell you who is giving them the drugs," said Ms Nhlapo.

The potential health implications of this are huge, on top of the access to care issue. When health care workers themselves are selling ARVs to be used as recreational drugs, what else will happen? These users are exposing themselves to side effects, and the HIV patients are putting themselves at huge risk by not taking these medications as they should be taken. I can only imagine what kind of black market this is going to create, especially in that part of the world. If this spreads to war-torn regions of Africa, how many more human rights violations will occur?

I've little idea how to begin to wrap my head around this one. Just mind-blowing. Wait until word gets round here in the US that apparently ARVs can be used for this. We'll have to watch to see if/when this comes out in the history of the next patient who rolls in to the ER with a CD4 count of, say, 4.

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