Drug abuse ‘out of hand’ in South Africa, needs radical policy shift

To get a handle on South Africa’s burgeoning drug problem, policymakers need to adopt a decriminalisation and harm reduction approach — or watch drug use spiral out of control to overwhelm already thin mental health and rehabilitation services.

A doctor, an activist and the national coordinator of South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca) said methamphetamine and heroin are streaming into the country, finding a large, willing market in deprived areas where people are eager to escape a grim and seemingly hopeless daily reality.

Sanca coordinator Adri Vermeulen said that “rehabilitating and returning people into these toxic social environments is a never-ending vicious cycle”. 

This week the Global State of Harm Reduction report by Harm Reduction International cited South Africa as having become one of the world’s largest methamphetamine markets. The report states that there are also “significant” methamphetamine markets in Botswana, eSwatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.