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Opioids in South Africa

Opioids in South Africa

Towards a policy of harm reduction From over-the-counter cough syrups and prescribed painkillers to street economies of heroin and fentanyl, opioid substances and uses have ignited global debates about national drug policy reform. This book is the first to focus on these issues in South Africa, through a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Health and wellbeing Open Access

  • Product Information
  • Format: 240mm x 168mm (Soft Cover)
  • Pages: 184
  • ISBN 13: 978-0-7969-2575-6
  • Publish Year: HSRC Press
  • Rights: World Rights

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Towards a policy of harm reduction From over-the-counter cough syrups and prescribed painkillers to street economies of heroin and fentanyl, opioid substances and uses have ignited global debates about national drug policy reform. This book is the first to focus on these issues in South Africa, through a range of disciplinary perspectives. In twelve chapters, scholars from community medicine, pharmacology, social science and the humanities, along with civic actors and researchers, present their evidence-based arguments and insights, and explore possibilities for harm reduction approaches in South Africa. Chapters cover three core areas: dilemmas of drug policy; contradictions of care and treatment; and the issue of stigma. Opioids in South Africa invites wider conversation, asking us to imagine policy responses that can better protect the constitutional dignity, health and access to healthcare of people using drugs as well as of their families and communities.

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Editor’s Introduction

Part One: Drug policy in a historical context

Chapter 1

An overdose in the archive: Opioids and harm in South African history

Thembisa Waetjen

Part Two: Dilemmas and opportunities in policy and care

Chapter 2

What questions should the national medicines regulatory authority be asking about opioids?

Andy Gray

Chapter 3

Balancing harms and the role of the courts in psychoactive substance policy reform: lessons from a cannabis case?

Anine Kriegler

Chapter 4

Reducing harm for users of heroin in Tshwane: Some reflections about health justice, communities and medical care

Jannie Hugo

Chapter 5

Reimagining the problem: substance use in tuberculosis patients in Cape Town

Anna Versfeld

Part Three: Involving research: Seeing problems and possibilities in the city

Chapter 6

Not really like you see in the news: nyaope users’ lives in Johannesburg

John Keketso Peete

Chapter 7

The value of trading a harmful drug for a less harmful drug in Durban

Monique Marks and Sibonelo Gumede

Chapter 8

Complexities, hopes, possibilities – People who use drugs doing research in Cape Town: reflections on inclusion and methodologies

Anna Versfeld, Eugene Beukes, Cedric Gallant, Andre Beukes, Marlon Cookson, Jeremy Titus, Maseehmo Maree, Rushana Benjamin, Shaun Shelly

Part Four: Perspectives on Treatment and Harm

Chapter 9

The relevance of harm reduction in South Africa: notes from the frontlines of a movement

Shaun Shelly

Chapter 10

Incompatible knots in harm reduction: a philosophical analysis

Guy du Plessis

Chapter 11

Stigma, treatment, and harm reduction in comparative perspective

Claire D Clark

About the contributors

Index

Thembisa Waetjen is an associate professor of history at the University of Johannesburg. Some of her recently published work is on opium and narcotics medicines regulation, labour and state-formation in early 20th century South Africa (for example in Journal of African History, Journal of Southern African Studies, and Social History of Medicine). In 2017, she developed an undergraduate university course entitled ‘Drugs, medicines and addiction in historical perspective’ and currently has four MA students writing research theses on drugs and related history topics. With Julie Parle and Rebecca Hodes, she has convened a Special Issue on histories of drugs consumption and regulation in southern African contexts for the South African Historical Journal (2019).

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