Abstract

In dealing with a wave of addiction to whoonga, a heroin variant drug beleaguering mainly Black African youth in South African townships and informal settlements, harm reduction measures take their cue from successes around the world. They call for community-based approaches that include availing opioid substitution therapy, and complementing professional expertise. This non-judgmental approach, compared with the preceding, moral and medical models on drug addiction, is concerned with alleviating negative psychological and social effects associated with addiction to drugs. This paper reviews literature on whoonga addiction in South Africa. The study theorises on the adoption of ecological and recovery approaches to drug addiction as appropriate to a whoonga situation, complementing harm reduction measures at local and community levels of intervention. The study adopted recovery as an organizing concept to give the face, the voice, the vision, choice, and hope that whoonga addiction can be overcome. The dislocation theory is revisited. This theory is consonant with a recovery movement at local level. It advances the idea of eradicating addictions: both interventions involve engaging the community agency.

Keywords: Addiction; Whoonga/nyaope; Recovery; Dislocation theory; Ecological approach