Drugs in South Africa:

The latest trends

Crack cocaine is now the fastest growing substance of abuse in South Africa, with Mandrax on the decline in many areas. Crack and heroin use will probably continue to grow and expand to new user groups. Given the highly addictive and socially damaging nature of these two drugs, law enforcement efforts need to be focused here. A nuanced and intelligence driven approach should replace less effective substance control programmes.

That South Africa would become a major transport conduit for drugs following the 1994 election was inevitable. Border control is no longer the priority it was under the apartheid state. South Africa also has everything international drug syndicates look for, without the resources to keep illegal enterprises out:

First world transportation and communications infrastructure.

A relatively stable currency.

Access to commodities like gold, diamonds, and endangered species parts.

A comfortable lifestyle for the affluent.

Unfortunately, unlike other countries with similar first world amenities, South Africa lacks the wherewithal to pay its police and other officials a wage that discourages corruption, the manpower to sufficiently patrol its borders, and the technology to monitor the inflow of goods from foreign countries.

SA’s drug market

An increase in organised crime including drug trafficking after 1994 was predictable. What is surprising is the extent to which South Africa has become a major destination point for drug shipments. Strong cultural barriers discourage drug use — less than half the population drinks alcohol, much less indulges in hard drugs.

But a number of factors have converged to make South Africa a leading drug market and unless addressed will continue to exacerbate what is already a crisis situation.

Due to the segregation imposed by the erstwhile Group Areas Act, a number of ethnically specific market chains for drugs evolved in South Africa. Cannabis was primarily cultivated and distributed by black Africans, Mandrax was imported, manufactured and distributed largely by Indian and coloured groups, and more exotic drugs were the domain of white syndicates and users. There remains some debate as to the state’s role in encouraging drug use among certain groups before the political transition in the mid 1990s.

Mandrax (especially the ‘white pipe’ combination unique to South Africa) was the number one hard drug of abuse prior to the transition to democracy. By the late 1980s, Mandrax comprised more than 70% of all drug seizures, with marijuana comprising 20%, and all other drugs combined less than 10%.

This picture contrasts sharply with that found outside the country during the same period. The active substance in Mandrax (methaqualone) played a very minor role in the drug culture in the rest of the world. The source of the American ‘war on drugs’ at the time was crack cocaine, a drug hardly featuring in South Africa in the 1980s.

Nigerians and crack cocaine

With the opening of South Africa’s borders following the 1994 election, the drug scene radically changed, in part due to the introduction of new players. According to research conducted for the Institute for Security Studies and the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Nigerian nationals, whose immigration was tolerated in large part due to their role in the anti-apartheid movement, flooded into Johannesburg. The cheap residential hotels in Hillbrow were prime targets for settlement.

These individuals were largely Igbo-speaking peoples of the oil producing south-east corner of Nigeria. Igbo immigrants claim Nigeria’s military government of the Muslim north has persecuted them in their homeland ever since their attempted succession in the Biafran rebellion. Upon entering South Africa, many applied for refugee status under section 41 of the Immigration Act. Although very few were successful in this action, it has provided a veneer of legitimacy to their presence throughout the long process of application and appeal.

Nigeria is recognised as a major player in the international drug economy, despite that fact that it produces no drugs of its own and has little domestic substance abuse problems. Anecdotal evidence suggests that their involvement began when Nigerian sailors stationed in India for training decided to augment their salaries by trading in heroin. Today, Nigerian nationals are blamed for a substantial portion of cocaine and heroin trafficking to the United States and Europe.

The Nigerian immigrants in Hillbrow’s residential hotels found themselves surrounded by a well established drug using population: the city centre sex workers. For sex workers, the transition from their earlier substance of abuse — Mandrax — to crack cocaine was an easy one. Crack, being a stimulant with pro-sexual effects in some users, was a far more appropriate substance for sex work than the depressant Mandrax. Soon sex workers were introducing their clients to the new drug, and the contagion was initiated.

Crack is now the fastest growing substance of abuse in South Africa, with Mandrax on the decline in many areas. Law enforcement attention has rightly been diverted to counter this new drug, with a corresponding sharp decline in cannabis and Mandrax arrests (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1: Number of arrests for dealing in cannabis and Mandrax

Source: SANAB, Durban SAPS

Figure 2: Number of arrests for dealing in cocaine, heroin and ecstasy

Source: SANAB, Durban SAPS

The massive decline in arrests for cannabis and Mandrax suggests a reprioritisation of resources to the inflow of new substances of abuse around the time of the country’s first democratic election. Unfortunately, this has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in arrests for these new drugs. While the increase in arrests for dealing in ecstasy do reflect the growing popularity of the drug, enforcement has not kept pace with the colossal expansion of crack cocaine and heroin. Last year’s arrests do show some response to the growth of these drugs, but this is still far from adequate to address the situation.

Heroin and ‘club drugs’

Heroin has been less quick to catch on, largely because South Africa has little culture of injection. The only drug injected in the past was the synthetic opiate Welconol, and many of these users died as a result of their abuse.

But heroin has become increasingly popular with sex workers, especially in central Johannesburg, in their search for a way to come down off the paranoia associated with long crack binges. There is also evidence that younger users, including school children, are being targeted, and that heroin may become the emblematic drug of the next generation.

Ecstasy and the other ‘club drugs’ such as LSD and speed, are presently consumed by a growing number of white youth. This consumption is not well recognised by officials because it has not represented a major social problem. Most of these drugs are non-addictive, and so very few rehabilitation admissions are seen.

Little collateral criminality is associated with the club drugs, as most of the consumers are relatively well resourced, and supply networks are stable. A recent exception is the sub-judice Vogel trial, in which an alleged member of a bouncer network was shot in Johannesburg, possibly due to disputes over drug commerce conducted in Durban. A steady increase in arrests for dealing in ecstasy has been seen in recent years.

Prioritising the right issues

It is anticipated that crack and heroin use will continue to grow and expand to new user groups. This should be of considerable concern because of the highly addictive and socially damaging nature of these two drugs. It is also likely that increasing violence will be associated with this trade, as markets become saturated and competition heats up.

It is imperative that national law enforcement takes action against the supplier groups and against the assets (such as the residential hotels) associated with the trade. Local law enforcement should be made aware of the modes of operation of these groups, so that the dealers may be given a cold reception in their attempts to expand.

Resources should be diverted to this effort from other, less effective, substance control programmes. Crop eradication, for example, has never succeeded in decreasing the supply of cannabis. Instead this intervention targets subsistence farmers causing human suffering, and has questionable environmental effects. Likewise, the problems associated with club drug usage are more appropriately addressed by educative, rather than punitive, efforts.

A new agenda for drug law enforcement should be drawn up, keeping in mind that South Africa has not one, but many, distinct substance abuse problems. One size does not fit all in this campaign, which calls for nuance and solid intelligence about dealers and market dynamics. Policy makers and practitioners must resist the tendency to simply apply a bigger hammer to the problems that confound them.

Ted Leggett
School of Development Studies
University of Natal, Durban