Hitting the Streets – SA’s Top Drug

In 2015, the World Health Organisation found that an estimated 15% of South Africans suffer from drug abuse. This steadily rising statistic makes South Africa one of the world’s drug-abuse capitals. And while South Africans are using the same kinds of drugs as the rest of the globe, a handful of substances are proving more popular.

MARIJUANA

Marijuana is by far the most used drug on South African streets, amounting to just over 60% of all substance abuse treatment cases. It’s currently still deemed illegal in South Africa, but in recent years some health experts have tried to legalise marijuana for medicinal use.

• Common street names: Dagga, Zol, Skyf, Joint, Weed, Grass, Pot, Boom, Ganja, Hash, Dope.
• Appearance: The dried marijuana leaves are sold in bags ranging in size. Some dealers also sell “ready-made” marijuana which is already rolled for smoking.
• Common effects: Effects vary from person to person, but in most cases it relaxes the user and leads to light-headedness. Depending on the strength, some users also experience mild hallucinations.
• Long-term results: Weakened immune system, an increase in abnormally structured cells in the body, personality and mood changes, difficulty to concentrate and possible lesions to the brain and lungs.

MANDRAX

South Africa is listed as the largest abuser of Mandrax (globally known as Quaalude) in the world. According to studies by the Medical Research Council, a mixture of Mandrax and marijuana is still the drug of choice in South Africa.

• Common street names: White Pipe, Buttons, MX, Gholfsticks, Doodies, Lizards, Press Outs, Flowers.
• Appearance: It is sold in pill form and often has a unique emblem. It also varies in colour.
• Common effects: It’s most commonly mixed with other marijuana to amplify the effects of smoking marijuana.
• Long-term results: Anaemia, poor liver function, chronic headaches, poor vision, depression and insomnia.

NYAOPE

This drug has been making its way through local streets since 2000. While it has been reported that the drug contains anti retroviral drugs, both the South African Police and analysts have denied any traces of the drugs. It’s unknown what exactly Nyaope contains, but the most common substances include heroin, cannabis and meth. There have also been cases of the drug containing rat poison, milk powder, bicarbonate of soda and even pool cleaner.

• Common street names: Whoonga, Wunga
• Appearance: Nyaope is bought in powder form and is then mixed with marijuana and smoked.
• Common effects: The effects don’t last long, with users reporting a sense of euphoria and complete relaxation.
• Long-term results: Insomnia, scarred or collapsed veins, liver and kidney disease, lung complications and mental and psychotic breaks.

CODEINE

Regarded as the most used drug in the world, codeine can be found in most cough mixtures, sinus medication and painkillers. South Africa is one of very few countries still selling codeine-based products over the counter without a prescription.

• Common street names: Syrup, Purple Drank, Cody.
• Appearance: Cough syrup, anti-allergy, sinus tablets and certain painkillers all contain codeine.
• Common effects: Since codeine blocks the brain’s pain receptors, the user experiences euphoria.
• Long–term results: Long-term use can result in blurry vision, nausea, insomnia, plus muscle and joint pain.

South African chefs stand tall at Oscars of food industry

 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards takes place in May this year. With 10 South African books shortlisted, the country has a strong chance to be recognised further on the global gastronomy stage.

The South African cookbook, Simply Delicious by Zola Nene, is one of the local cookbooks shortlisted in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for 2017. (Image: © Penguin Random House South Africa, Dawie Verwey)

There are at least 10 South African cookbooks shortlisted in different categories in what is often referred to as the Oscars of the food industry, the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

“It is a step towards the best in the world,” they wrote on their Facebook page. “It does not include all the winners by country, but gives an idea of the scope of the competition.”

South Africa’s population

South Africa is a nation of diversity, with nearly 52-million people and a wide variety of cultures, languages and religious beliefs.

According to Census 2011, the country’s population stands at 51.77-million, up from the census 2001 count of 44.8-million.

Africans are in the majority, making up 79.2% of the population; coloured and white people each make up 8.9% of the total; and the Indian/Asian population 2.5%. “Other” population group makes up 0.5% of the total.

• At a glance
• By province
• Population groups
• Languages

AT A GLANCE

According to the Census 2011 data from Statistics South Africa, in 2011 the country’s population was 51 770 560, of which 26 581 769 (51.3%) were female and 25 188 791 (48.7%) were male.

Africans are in the majority at just over 41-million, making up 79.2% of the total population. The coloured population is 4 615 401 (8.9%), while there are 4 586 838 (8.9%) whites. The Indian/Asian population stands at 1 286 930 (2.5%). In 2011, “other” was included in the Census, and accounts for 280 454 or 0.5% of the total.

SA’s POPULATION: CENSUS 2011
Population group	Number	% of total
African	41 000 938	79.2%
White	4 586 838	8.9%
Coloured	4 615 401	8.9%
Indian/Asian	1 286 930	2.5%
Other	280 454	0.5%
TOTAL	51 770 560	100%

President Trump in disbelief at travel ban appeals court process

Equally, I don’t really understand commentators who say it’s vital not to normalise any of Trump’s actions. They have been normalised for eight years by Barack Obama while many of the same people looked the other way. Banks and corporations writing their own legislation; war by executive order; mass deportations; kill lists: it’s all now as normal and American as earthquakes caused by fracked gases being ignited by burning abortion clinics. Of course, there is a moral difference in whether such actions are performed by a Harvard-educated constitutional law professor or a gibbering moron, and the distinction goes in Trump’s favour. That’s not to say Trump won’t plumb profound new depths of awfulness, like the disbanding of the environmental protection agency set up by hippy, libtard snowflake Richard Nixon.

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Obviously, the most important issue here is why America hasn’t done as well as in the past at capitalising on these horrors to create good music about the political turmoil. I mean, where is their Bob Dylan? Where are their anthems about drone warfare killing innocent civilians? Instead we’ve got Drake begging women via song to text him back after a fight at the Cheesecake Factory. Britain seems to be in an even deeper cultural torpor. Everything from Teen Vogue to young adult fiction has a more radical take than our press, and the Trump administration is satirised by American television with a venom that the British television industry, for its own government, does its best to avoid.

Trump is at war with Saturday Night Live. He thinks it’s horrible and yet he can’t stop watching. Pretty much the same as how the world feels about him. How can he expect to escape ridicule? Being on reality TV is the closest he ever got to reality. His children look like a teen movie about Wall Street vampires directed by Uday Hussein. He has cultivated a square face that’s the shade of a banned food colouring and the muscle tone of a coma patient. He looks like aliens came to Earth and made a human costume after seeing one commercial for a car dealership. Really, he seems like the sort of person that a competent leftwinger with a humane alternative offer should be able to beat at the next election. Sad, really, that the only way Bernie Sanders could return in 2020 is as a glass sliding about a ouija board.

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 Trump and family: like a teen movie about Wall Street vampires directed by Uday Hussein. Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

During the campaign, Trump said he wanted to stop America from making foreign military interventions, possibly because he realised he would need the army for suppressing the domestic population. Yet someone so media-obsessed can’t help but realise that among all the gaffes and flak, his insane aggression towards China and Iran has escaped censure. The media and political establishment largely approve. They only fret that he doesn’t take the same planet-threatening posture with Russia. War sells papers, television advertising and arms. It makes politicians feel important. It provides nationalism with clear enemies to define itself against. Despite all the other failures this administration promises, the US might finally be on time for a world war.

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So what do we do? I think, first of all, it’s worth noting that, under an authoritarian government, all protest will be vilified anyway. Even before Trump, people got very upset that quarterback Colin Kaepernick didn’t stand during the national anthem. You’d think that would fall under the list of White People Approved Forms of Protest, along with leaving a voicemail for your senator kindly asking them to stop shooting black people in the street. Personally, I think there’s limited value in moralising with, or fact-checking, regimes that don’t care about morals or facts. In Britain we also have an increasingly authoritarian government. We send them petitions telling them that we don’t want them reading our emails, which they presumably already know from reading our emails. We face a brief political period that, unchecked, will bring at least irreversible climate change and, at worst, nuclear war.

Morally, I think you have to look at what you can do to change your own country first, as that’s the bit you have most influence on. This is complicated in Britain as we have a government that has undergone what is known in the business world as “regulatory capture” by corporate and financial interests, and is, broadly speaking, a vassal state of the US. What can we do practically to influence our own government that would truly affect the Trump administration? Well, in a country supposedly filled with restored national pride, we could not renew Trident and refuse to be his missile base. That kind of strategic loss would damage him deeply. No amount of likes or memes or petitions can achieve this. Really, if we want to survive as a species, it’s time for organised civil disobedience. It’s time to stop writing to your MP.