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Siyayinqoba Beat It! 2006 Episode 1 –

Injecting drug users

In this the first episode of Siyayinqoba Beat It! 2006, things were slightly different from the last series. Shalom Ncala was this series’ presenter but we still had the old support group members, with the exception of the three new members – Thami Mthembu, Fanie de Villiers and Victor Lakay. In this episode the support group spoke about HIV and drug abuse. The studio guest, Guy du Plessis, clarified the dangers of using drugs while being HIV positive. And like Jason, Shalom wrapped up the show with a few helpful points on positive living.

Shalom Ncala: Sanibonani siyanamukela eqendwini le-Siyayinqoba. Igama lami ngu-Shalom Ncala. Kuleli qembu lokusekelana le-Beat It, sonke siphila negciwane le-HIV. Sihlangana njalo ngeviki ukuba sixoxisane ngezinto ezithinta impilo yethu maqondana ne-HIV. Ukusuka ekutheni singabhekana kanjani nezifo ezithathelanayo ukuya ekuphatheni kahle amazinyo ne-HIV. Siyayinqoba luhlelo lwakho lokuphila kangcono ne-HIV. Uma uphila ngegciwane le-HIV, noba unomlingani, ilunga lomndeni noma umngani osengenwe ligciwane le-HIV, i-Siyayinqoba ngeyakho. Sawubona Busi, ninjani? Sawubona Lihle, kunjani? Kunjani Vuyani? Hello Victor, Fanie how are you? Thami kwenzakalani empilweni yakho? {IsiZulu} [Hello and welcome to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group. My name is Shalom Ncala. In the Beat It! Support Group, we are all living positively with HIV. Each week we get together to discuss issues that affect our lives with HIV, from how to deal with opportunistic infections to dental health and HIV. Siyayinqoba is your guide to better living with HIV. If you are living with HIV, or you have a friend or family member who is HIV positive, this programme is for you. Thami what’s happening in your life?]

Thami Mthembu: Hayi, sisi ngikhathele kabi, ngimamtasatasa nge-research ye-microbicides. {IsiZulu} [I’m busy with research on Microbicides]

Shalom Ncala: Is it? That’s very interesting. Namhlanje sikhuluma nangelana nento ekumelwe kubhekwana nayo njengamanje ukuze kuvinjelwe umthombo omusha wokungenwa yi-HIV – imijovo yezidakamizwa. Kwamanye amazwe njengase-Russia, imijovo yezidakamizwa yimbhangela enkulu yokubhebhetheka kwegciwane le-HIV. Izidakamizwa zithinta i-HIV ngezindlela ezimbili: okokuqala uma nabelana ngezinaliti ngenkathi nijova izidakamizwa, igazi elingenwe yi-HIV litheleleka ukusuka komunye umuntu liye komunye. Okwesibili izidakamizwa zingaholeka engozini enkulu ezochantsi ezingaphephile. Abasebenzisi bezidakamizwa banakho ukuthengisa ngomzimbha ukuze bathole izidakamizwa, kanye nangenxa yokuthi umuntu ulahlekelwa yikhono lokuthatha isinqumo sifanele uma edle izidakamizwa. Kulesisikhathi ukusebenzisa umjovo akuyona indlela evamile yokusebenzisa izidakamizwa eningizimu afrika. Lapha abantu bazihogela izidakmizwa. Kepha nacho ukujova izidakamizwa kuya ngokundlondlobala eningizimu Afrika, ikakhulu kubantu abasha. Kuleliviki sibona ukuthi kuyingozi kangakanani ukusebenzisa izidakamizwa ezweni elifana nelethu. Iqembu le-Siyayinqoba liye lakhulumisana nomunye obekade esbenzisa izidakamizwa, osalulama malungana nolwazi lokuhaqeka. Makhe sibone. {IsiZulu} [Today we are talking about something that needs to be tackled now to stop a new source of HIV infection – injecting drug use. In some countries, like Russia, injecting drugs is the main cause of the spread of HIV. Drugs affect HIV in two ways. Firstly, if you share needles while injecting drugs, HIV infected blood can pass from one person to another. Secondly, drugs can lead to high risk, unsafe sex. Drug users will have sex to obtain drugs, and because of lack of good judgement while high on drugs. Currently, injecting is not a popular way of using drugs in South Africa. Here, people smoke drugs. But injecting drug use is growing in South Africa, especially among the youth. This week we see how dangerous it is to use drugs in a country like ours. The Beat It! Team spoke to a recovering drug addict about her experience of addiction. Let’s take a look.

Beware of HIV from dirty needles

Johannesburg, Gauteng

Anonymous: I started experimenting with dagga and ecstasy and then a bit of speed and coke when I was in my teens. And I used to go to sort of clubs and raves and take ecstasy every weekend, then everyday and before I knew it I couldn’t perform socially without some sort of chemical. I also used to use these diet pills everyday and then tranquilizers to get to sleep. So I was an addict before I started using heroine. From the first time I took it, I absolutely loved it. I smoked it for four months everyday from that first day. Ja, I felt like I’d come home, it was the most fantastic drug ever.

Andreas Pluddemann (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Group, MRC): Heroin is a so-called opiate which is derived from the Asian poppy plant. It basically acts as a painkiller or sedative and it usually has the appearance of a whitish or brownish powder.

Anonymous: My lifestyle was absolutely pathetic. I was at university and I tried my very best to carry on with my studies but I couldn’t function without drugs, I couldn’t perform the simplest of daily tasks without a hit. I mean I needed it before I got in the shower or before I answered the phone or went to the shops. I was living with my drug dealer boyfriend who was very manipulative and also a heroine and crack addict, very abusive and had all sorts of weird sexual fetishes which I gave in to because I needed my drugs and I didn’t have a job and I had a very expensive habit. I was prostituting myself for drugs. Physically, I was falling apart, I was very thin, couldn’t keep food down, I was always sick, I had sores all over my face from scratching. I had infections all the time, I was constantly had flu. Ja, I was sordid and miserable and I sort of floated around in this unhappy little bubble and the only thing that mattered was the next hit and getting and using.

Andreas Pluddemann (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Group, MRC): Most people would eventually move to injecting in order to use less of the drug and have more efficient root of administering the drug so most users would eventually progress to injecting.

Anonymous: I shared with my boyfriend right from the start and he shared with lots of other people and if there wasn’t a clean needle around, I generally rinse them out with alcohol or tap water and put it in.

Andreas Pluddemann (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Group, MRC): Needle-sharing is a much more efficient way of transmitting HIV than heterosexual activity.

Anonymous: The fear of HIV does not come into your head when the next hit is right around the corner. If there’s a clean needle there, I would have used it but if there wasn’t, there wasn’t and too bad. While I was using, I was pretty sure I was HIV positive in the back of my head. I didn’t think that I wasn’t but I didn’t really want to think about it. When I cleaned up, I went for a whole range of blood tests and miraculously I was clean on all counts. I don’t know how but I was just very, very lucky.

Support Group

Shalom Ncala: Ukuze sisizakale ekuxoxisaneni ngoludaba sihlanganan no-Guy du Plessis, umntu osemusha owayekade ehaqeke kwisidakamizwa esibizwa nge-heroin, kepha okumanje nje kuyalulama. Sikwamukela Guy. {IsiZulu} [To help us discuss this issue, we are joined by Guy du Plessis, a young man who was addicted to heroin, but is now recovering. We welcome you Guy.]

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): Thanks

Shalom Ncala: Thank you for joining us on the programme today and how are you?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I’m very well thanks.

Shalom Ncala: Thank you very much. Do you find that this is a growing problem amongst society in South Africa?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): Drug addicts in general?

Shalom Ncala: Yes, drug addiction in general.

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think it’s a generally growing thing, I think it’s always been on a steady growing curve since it started. But in the recent years, we saw quite an increase in the Western Cape especially amongst Tik users, but before that heroin use. It’s definitely something on the increase.

Shalom Ncala: So would you say heroin, for instance, is something that is growing amongst the black population or something like that?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think heroin, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t really caught on that big in the black communities but it certainly has through middle class white communities and also to a smaller degree, the Western Cape coloured communities. But as far as I’m aware of, the black communities haven’t really caught on that big although it is present there, it’s not that it’s not present at all.

Shalom Ncala: How expensive is it for you to be on heroin? Tell us your drug use for maybe a month.

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): Well it’s quite an expensive pastime. I think it depends where you’re on in your habit: if you’ve just started out, if you’re just experimenting, if you’ve been using a long time. Because you build up a tolerance against heroin because you need to use more and more as time goes by to get the same euphoria. And after a while you don’t really get euphoria, you just basically take the drug to keep your, what they call a, cold turkey at bay. So you have to administer the drug every six to eight hours not to get sick. And so a gram goes for R150 at the moment.

Busisiwe Maqungo: But how much do you need a day?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think anything from half a gram to three grams, depends on your habit. I mean four grams, some people use up to five grams a day. It depends on your habit.

Lihle Dlamini: I’ve seen a lot of young boys who use drugs in my community, they look very thin, they look pale, they look sick, what do you think would be the impact of them being infected with HIV as well because you know HIV damages the immune system itself and how dangerous is it to share needles as we saw in that insert: that lady was pricking on the needle and some blood came out. What dangers are there?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): The lady we saw on the video: she was injecting and if somebody else had to use her syringe after her, she mentioned that she was washing it with tap water but tap water doesn’t destroy the virus. Oversees in the needle exchange, in Europe and America they give out bleach with new needles and if you do use your needle and you clean it with bleach, there’s a very high possibility that it will be clean. But just rinsing it out with water or just squirting out the bit of blood is not going to necessarily destroy the virus. So if anybody had to use that syringe and she was HIV positive, there’s a very high possibility they might contract it.

Shalom Ncala: Sizophinda siqhubeke nokusetshenziswa kabi kwezidakamizwa ne-HIVngemuva kwekhefu. Hlala nathi. {IsiZulu} [We talk more about substance abuse and HIV after the break. Stay with us.]

Shalom Ncala: Mbukeli siphinda siyakwamukela futhi ehlelweni leqembu losekelwana lwe-Siyayinqoba, okuluhlelo lalowo nalowo ongenwe futhi nothintekalyo nge-HIV. Namhlanje sikhuluma ngokusetshenziswa kwezidakamizwa kanye ne-HIV. Iqembhu le-Siyayinqoba liphinde lakhulumisana no-Aneesa Isaacs, itshitshi lase-Mitchell’s Plain entshonalanga kappa, owayehaqekile kwisidakamizwa esaziwa nge-Tik. Makesibone udaba lwakhe. {IsiZulu} [Welcome back to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group – the programme for everyone infected and affected by HIV. Today we are talking about drug use and HIV. The Beat It! Team also spoke to Aneesa Isaacs, a young girl from Mitchell’s Plain in the Western Cape, who was addicted to a drug called tik. Let’s watch her story.

How Tik took control of my life

Mitchell’s Plain, Western Cape

Aneesa Isaacs: I was 16 when I started using the drug called tik. I started using it only on weekends and from there on I started using it everyday.

Grant Jardine (Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre): Tik is crystal methamphetamine, it is not a new drug, it has been around for a number of decades. Generally before, the staying term for it was speed and now the staying term for it is tik. And we have seen an absolute epidemic in terms of the youth of crystal meth. In the twenty-year history of the Drug Counselling Centre, dagga and mandrax have always been our top two presenting drugs for each and every one of those years except for the first time last year where crystal meth was number one and heroin was number two.

Aneesa Isaacs: I would say the majority of the children in the schools are using drugs and for me, school is a positive place to get your education but I dropped out of school this year because of my using. I was an A-grade student, I had good grades and I messed it up by getting into drugs. Ja, you used to be confident, you didn’t care but the way you look to other people, you look like a dead person but to yourself you are the most beautiful person in the world. You are on top of the world, you will do anything.

Grant Jardine (Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre): Tik is very much a stimulant, it speeds you up, it gives you a sense of energy, you may speak very fast, you may have what is called a ‘Flight of Ideas’ so you don’t stick to a particular topic, maybe some trembling but it gives you energy, a sense of confidence, euphoria, sense of power.

Aneesa Isaacs: Tik gives guys a high sex drive and it makes the girls as well horny to get drugs. And if you’re drugged you will do anything at any cost to get the drugs. At parties, they would have sex without using condoms, without being aware of HIV and STDs and they just don’t care at that time, you don’t care what you do.

Grant Jardine (Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre): There are strong indications that there’s a link between substance abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and high risk sexual behaviour. And it’s simply about doing things which you wouldn’t normally do while you are under the influence of a mood-altering substance.

Aneesa Isaacs: I know that HIV is a sexually transmitted disease that you get when you have unsafe sex. You can get it through blood transfusion and that but mostly with unsafe sex, without using a condom.

Support Group

Shalom Ncala: Mbukeli siphinda siyakwamukela futhi nehlelweni leqendu lesekelwana lwe-Siyayinqoba, okuhlelo lalowo nalowo ongenwe futhi nothintekayo nge-HIV. {IsiZulu} [Welcome back to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group – the programme for everyone infected and affected with HIV.]

Victor Lakay: Guy, is there any connection between drugs and sex, do people lose their inhibitions when they are on drugs?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think there is various connections, I mean people obviously lose inhibitions when they are on drugs because you’re high and you think you’re invincible and it depends what drugs you use. Certain older men smoke crack and it’s quite common crack increases your sex drive and they frequent prostitutes. The young girls that are on crack or heroin or any of the highly addictive drugs normally end up prostituting themselves, even if it isn’t a formal prostitution, they sleep with their dealers and stuff like that or sleep around for money. You guys are talking about HIV, it’s a very dangerous way, well it’s an easy way to get AIDS in that fashion because obviously the people they sleep with are dangerous people. If you’re sleeping with your dealer, that same dealer slept with numerous other drug addict girls. And so it’s a very high risk situation.

Thami Mthembu: What would be the effect of these drugs on somebody whose HIV positive and is experimenting these kinds of drugs?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): It depends what type of drugs you’re taking and the quantity and the intervals you’re taking them. So if you have HIV and you’re taking something like methamphetamine in which you don’t eat, you don’t sleep, it’s very toxic for your body and your brain in general. You’re obviously lowering your immune system even further and reducing your life capacity.

Shalom Ncala: In the insert I saw something about that girl, she was talking about how she would never think of herself as positive while she was on a high, it’s something that you discard whenever you want to get high, can I ask you a personal question, did it feel the same way to you when you decided you wanted to stop? Did you get scared of the implications of your stopping, the implications of you having to go and test?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): Sure, when you using, something like HIV is really in the back of your head, you have much more urgent issues to worry about in the life of an addict; like scoring the next drug, having to get the money for that especially if you are advanced in your addiction. Most of your avenues of getting money are closed, you can’t go borrow money anymore, you don’t have a job anymore. So you either have to steal or you have to make some plan. So the last thing you are worrying about on that day is whether you HIV or not or am I going to get HIV? And there’s a certain amount of denial, very few people are going to take a syringe that they know is HIV infected and use it. So there’s a certain amount of denial around the using, it won’t happen to me, I’m invincible, it will happen to everyone else except me. And obviously when you clean up one day, your brain clears and you start thinking a bit better and then the reality hits you that there’s very high possibility that you might be infected and it’s quite a scary thought and it’s what they call a rock-bottom experience for a lot of people is when they go and do their first HIV test and they sit there in the clinic and the doctor tells them you’ve got HIV or not. It’s quite a powerful experience for a lot of addicts in recovery at that specific moment.

Busisiwe Maqungo: Is there syringe exchange happening in South Africa?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): No there isn’t, not that I’m aware of, no.

Busisiwe Maqungo: Because I’m thinking that it should be treated like condoms, so that if people want to have sex, at least they should have safe sex. The same as drug use, as much as we don’t want people to use drugs, at least if it happens that they do drugs they should do it in a safe way like they do with syringe exchange.

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think that’s a rationale for a lot of needle exchangers in Europe and America; that people are doing in anyway regardless of you are going to give them syringes or not. And the other school of thought is that people think if you give people clean syringes you’re actually enabling people to do it more.

Thami Mthembu: Are there any programmes or is there any training or any campaigns that are running out there that are actually trying to reform these drug users? Or rather make them aware of the dangers of it as well.

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): I think there’s been various attempts, I’m sure there’s various campaigns running in the government obviously and put a certain amount of money into education and various things like that. Although I’m not aware of specifically of what those campaigns are. But the problem is, with a lot of drug awareness campaigns that have been proven in the States, for instance, with the Just say no campaign of Nancy Raegon in the 80’s – a very big multi-million rand campaign, they reckon that campaign caused more kids to use drugs than not to use drugs. The ‘Speed Kills’ campaign they were running in England and Europe for a long time also introduced a lot of people to amphetamines. So a lot of these campaigns, you really need to know what you are doing with kids ’cause you’re showing kids all these paraphernalia: “Look here is a syringe, it’s bad for you” and what do kids want to do when you tell them not to eat it, he wants to try it.

Thami Mthembu: No, but what I’m trying to say is that I see what you’re getting at but it sounds like those campaigns are very correctional and obviously it’s been proven over the years that when you’re dealing with young people, you can’t give them corrective behaviour. Are there any matured campaigns that actually give them options? So what I’m saying is that I’m not talking about campaigns that say don’t use drugs but rather campaigns that show the whole picture of what drug use actually means.

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): Personally I’m not aware of those campaigns, there might be, I’m not sure. There certainly should be.

Busisiwe Maqungo: Guy, it’s only rich people who can afford rehab. Are there public facilities where people who cannot afford private rehabs can go? Are there any public?

Guy du Plessis (Counsellor, Tabankulu Drug Recovery Centre): You’re talking about quite a couple of thousand rands a month. Most treatment centres are more than R10 000 a month in Cape Town or treatment centres that are reputable. So you’re dealing with middle-class, upper-class. And we see a lot of people there who can only come for a short time because they can’t afford more. We get a lot of phone calls from people who would like treatment but can’t afford it especially with the rise of tik that has really affected the middle class and the lower income bracket of the Western Cape. I have a friend that works in the Fishhoek centre and they get calls daily – “What can the mothers do?” There’s very little places for them to go to. So something that I’d like to see change in this country is that there’s free treatment.

Shalom Ncala: Namhlanje sifunde ukuthi ukusetshenziswa kwezidakamizwa kuyinkinga ekhulayo ezweni lakithi kanye nokuthi nawe ungangenwa yi-HIV ngokwabelana ngezinaliti ezisetshenziselwa ukujova izidakamizwa. Izidakamizwa ziphinde zikwenze ungabinokunakekela futhi ubesengcupheni yokwenza izinto zokocantsi obukade ungekhe uzenze kwesinye isimookuholela kwezocantsi ezingaphephile kanye nokwenyuka kwengozi yokungenwa yigciwane le-HIV. Siphinde safunda nokuthi kunokwenzeka uthole usiza mangelana nenkinga yezidakamizwa, kukhona abaluleki kanye nemithola mpilo kuwo onke amagumbi alelizwe. Uhulemani nama-NGOs kumele basumbule izintlelo zokuqiniseka ukuthi lokhu akungumthombo omusha wokonyusa izinga esivele liphakeme lokungenwa yigciwane le-HIV. Siyaukuthokozela kakhulu ukuphawula lemibuzo yenu. Ningasibhalela Kulelikheli P O Box 62, Muizenberg 7950 noma nisithumele i-email ku info@beatit.co.za ningaphinda futhi nisithinte ku www.beatit.co.za Masiphinde sihlangane evikini elizayo eqendwini le-Siyayinqoba Beat It. Kuze kuyesikhathi esizayo, hlalani ndiphilile, hlalani ninethemba. Salani kahle. {IsiZulu} [Today we’ve learnt that drug use is a growing problem in our country and that you can get infected with HIV through sharing needles used to inject drugs. Drugs make you less inhibited and more likely to do things sexually that you probably wouldn’t do otherwise, leading to unsafe sex and increased risk of HIV infection. We’ve also learnt that it’s possible to get help with drug problems, there are counsellors and clinics in all parts of the country. Government and NGOs need to introduce programmes to make sure that this doesn’t become a new source pushing up our already high HIV infection rate. We value your comments and questions. You can write to us or email us. Join us again next week in the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support group. Till then, stay healthy, stay positive. Goodbye.]

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