Media can’t kick nyaope habit
Kim Johnson
24 August 2012
A new rash of reports involving the theft of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs do nothing to dispel the myth that ARVs can be smoked and provide a ‘high’.
Reports in The New Age and The Star this week related how armed robbers stormed a doctor’s rooms in Soweto demanding ARVs to make nyaope. Nyaope, also known as whoonga, is a street drug made mostly of cheap heroin, rat poison and other substances.
While it cannot be denied that ARV theft is taking place and that the stolen ARVs might find their way into nyaope, The Star and TNA could have used the robbery as an opportunity to confirm that ARVs cannot produce a ‘high’ when smoked.
Last year researchers at UKZN found that samples of the street drug nyaope (otherwise known as ‘whoonga’) did not contain ARVs. Experts also say that ARVs like Efavirenz are “impossible to smoke” and have “no proven psycho-active effects”.
By not offering up information that could dispel this myth, reports like the ones in The Star and TNA could actually perpetuate ARV theft.
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