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Complex organised crime networks are fuelling a health crisis that is getting worse and addiction treatment isn’t keeping up.

Here’s how to make drug addiction a health issue, not a criminal one

Experts say South Africa’s contradictory approach to drugs — treating addiction as both a disease and a crime — is fuelling a worsening crisis in places like Westbury, where…

The tobacco industry says vaping is 95% safer than smoking. Should you believe it?

The tobacco bill violates human rights

Harm reduction, not regulations will help South African smokers to quit

You can’t treat what you can’t count: No one knows how many people inject drugs in east and southern Africa. (Yannis Behrakis, Reuters)
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Southern Africa’s missing drug users: We can’t treat what we don’t count

No one really knows how many people inject drugs in east and southern Africa and that’s a bigger problem than you think.

Many solutions have been proposed around the world, and one of them is to treat drug abuse as a crime but as a health crisis.

[WATCH] Busted: Three myths about drug addiction

If you think shutting down needle exchange programmes will keep your city free of contaminated needles, think again.

After months of negotiations, things are looking up for injecting drug users in Durban. (Yannis Behrakis, Reuters)
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Durban delays re-opening of city’s only needle exchange programme

The project’s closure six months ago forced some injecting drug users to share needles and risk infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C.

When people with diabetes inject insulin

Watch this man’s amazing transformation after he kicked heroin with the help of this

When people with diabetes inject insulin, we don’t see that as an addiction. So why is opioid substitution therapy considered one?

Injecting drug users are at high risk of contracting Hepatitis C from sharing needles. (Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters)
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SA needs R4-billion to fight this killer virus you may never have heard of

Newer, lifesaving drugs for South Africa’s "silent" killer aren’t yet available in the country.

Naloxone is cheap

Saved: How drug users gained the power to reverse overdoses

Find out how drug users banded together to use a simple injection to save thousands of lives.

Pictures of drug users injecting themselves with the blood of others have gone viral in SA.

Freak waves and HIV in Durban. What’s the link?

Misconceptions about HIV infection and injection drug use could shut down the only project working to curb it.

Smith also has a history of on-field flare-ups

Myths and methadone: Will Egypt’s laws bend to the rising tide of drug abuse?

The real revolution is yet to come when it relates to the country’s opioid epidemic.

This programme is saving heroin users on the streets of Tshwane

Chasing the dragon, stalking a virus: Life, heroin and Tshwane’s needle exchange

This programme is saving heroin users on the streets of Tshwane, one clean needle at a time.

Injecting drug users are at high risk of contracting Hepatitis C from sharing needles. (Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters)

These countries medically prescribe heroin, should SA follow suit?

It’s time that evidence, not stigma, drive SA’s drug policies.

Helen Zille is the new chairperson of the DA’s federal council. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

It’s time to end SA’s war on drugs

Drugs have destroyed many lives, but wrongheaded governmental policies have destroyed many more, argue experts.

Many solutions have been proposed around the world, and one of them is to treat drug abuse as a crime but as a health crisis.

‘Bluetoothing’: The drug myth that fooled a nation?

Outreach workers say the practice making headlines isn’t as widespread as it’s been made out to be as they rush to prevent more from trying it.

Pictures of drug users injecting themselves with the blood of others have gone viral in SA.

‘Bluetoothing’: Is this drug fad really happening in South Africa?

Pictures of drug users injecting themselves with the blood of others have gone viral in SA.

When the hard lockdowns kicked in it was discovered that 3 000 schools didn’t have an adequate water supply. But this is not a new problem

[EXCLUSIVE] Police arrest health workers for giving drug users clean water

The health department calls arrests ‘unfortunate’ after senior officials spend night trying to get workers out of cells.

Injecting drug users need access to safe needle exchanges and opiate substitution programmes.

How Africa’s addicts are being helped to stay HIV-free

Those who ‘shoot up’ have a higher risk of getting infected, but some progressive nations are encouraging drug users to adopt safer habits.

Neymar was set to smash the previous transfer record.

‘No home, no money, no medicine – but who cares? I don’t exist’

Introduce harm-reduction and HIV programmes – especially for heroin users – before it’s too late.