During the previous century, workers doing hard labour in the mining, agricultural and construction sectors were often given doses of alcohol and sometimes cannabis to enhance their work performance, in a practice known as the “dop system”, a recent forum heard.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and the country’s substance abuse problem can be linked to high unemployment,, according to Mark Hunter, a professor of human geography at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.
“It is a sad irony that drugs played such an important part [in] creating the wealth of the country, [while] the state has largely abandoned the generation of young men and women who take substances,” Hunter told a webinar last week, referring to a shortage of rehabilitation centres in poorer areas.
Hunter led a virtual discussion hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which looked at the connection between joblessness and drugs.
He cited recent interviews with men in the Umlazi informal settlement south-west of Durban, where he found that almost all users of heroin, locally known as whoonga, were men aged 20 to 29.
“Those I interviewed tended to have done poorly at school; none matriculated and half started using the drug while attending high school,” he said. “To put it simply, heroin has risen in areas where there was not a clear path to formal work.”
In 2011, Professor Dieter Henkel, of the Institute for Addiction Research (ISFF) in Germany, reviewed more than 130 global studies on drug use and its links with employment from 1990 to 2010.
Although Henkel noted the studies’ various limitations, the majority of findings suggested that risky alcohol consumption was more prevalent among those without jobs. Substance use increased the likelihood of unemployment and decreased the chance of holding down a job — and that unemployment was a risk factor for substance use and the subsequent development of substance use disorders.
The era of alcohol and cannabis
Last week’s webinar heard how European settlers realised the benefit of producing or selling drugs to “create relations of dependencies and to increase the amount of intensity of power” over native South Africans.
“In a region where white settlers held substantial power, race played an important part in history on mind-altering substances, especially alcohol but also cannabis. This was very closely tied with work,” Hunter said.
Employees were given alcohol or cannabis while working to improve performances and to complete dangerous work. But some employers were conflicted by how alcohol could reduce profitability.
This ultimately led to a ban on alcohol for all workers classified as “African”. The ban was lifted in 1962, but it had already fuelled an informal market where alcohol was produced and sold.
“The state did not focus on the substance — a debate on the use of alcohol or if cannabis should be banned — but focused on a person’s race, making race a determinant who can digest what,” Hunter said. He added to that, rehabilitation centres for alcohol abuse were prevalent in predominantly white areas in the 1960s and 1970s, with little to none in black areas.The centres were privately built and in some cases subsidised by the state. The City of Durban only opened a rehabilitation centre for black alcohol users in the late 1960s.
Fast forward to now, and there remains a critical shortage of rehabilitation facilities in predominantly black areas, where drug abuse is “intertwined” with joblessness, according to Hunter.
Whereas in the 20th century, the landscape of drugs was limited to alcohol and cannabis, this changed when South Africa opened its borders for goods and people after apartheid — leading to an influx of harder substances.
Chasing the dragon, buttons and Xanax
Three of the most common drugs of choice among addicts nowadays include Mandrax, heroin/whoonga and Xanax. Mandrax, also called “buttons”, was initially produced as a pharmaceutical product to induce sleeping. In the 1970s, South Africa emerged as the leading country for misuse of this substance. The pill would be crushed and mixed with cannabis and then smoked to give “an immediate hit so strong it can make someone pass out”, Hunter said.
The drug was banned in the 1970s, paving the way for an illicit market and later the establishment of drug cartels that fought violent turf wars.
In the 2000s, the use of heroin was reported in Indian classified areas, and was introduced to African areas in the 2010s. According to Hunter, those addicted to heroin are often in jobs such as washing cars, construction work, taxi conductors and scrap metal collectors.
Xanax started streaming into schools in KwaZulu-Natal in 2018 and 2019, with learners telling Hunter in 2021 that they used the substance as an antidepressant.
“Xanax is used to relax and distract learners from their circumstances. Some use the drug to get through a school day, whether to promote fun, a distraction from their problems [at home], or to relax.”
He decried how, even after the end of apartheid, South Africa has retained a largely punitive drug policy where police and the criminal justice system still target poor black users.
Between 2005 and 2015, arrests for illegal substances increased by more than 180%, Hunter noted, arguing that punishing drug users “can place them on a pathway of more drug use, not less”.
[/membership]