SA is facing a fast-escalating heroin crisis. And it's being misunderstood

A man prepares an injection of nyaope under the Joe Slovo bridge. The drug contains a mixture of heroin, cannabis and antiretrovirals. Treatment centres in the country found that most heroin users smoke the drug, but a sizeable minority also inject it.

Consequently, there is a fair amount of guess-work that goes into developing the figures. Yet, this is only one of several sources of data that shows that South Africa has a serious and growing heroin problem. For instance, the report quotes a drug dealer in Johannesburg who states:"In the early days, we mixed heroin with other stuff to make the volume bigger, and you could do it because there wasn't a lot of competition and a lot of people didn’t know anything purer, but those days are over, there's a lot of heroin in the system and if you mix it, people won't buy from you.

Think the US-Mexico border for instance, or the massive amounts of illicit substances entering Europe. South Africa doesn't face that problem according to Shelly, who explains that"part of the reason is because heroin is cheap and easily available here… there's no financial incentive to cut another drug into it".

Nyaope

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