HIV and ID Observations

An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
all matters medical, and some not so medical.

December 10th, 2008

Unintended Consequences of ART “Rollout”

According to this BBC article, teenagers in South Africa are grinding up antiretrovirals and then smoking them for their “hallucinogenic and relaxing effect”. 

(Apologies for the pun on the title.)

It’s impossible to tell with a report like this how widespread the practice is, but it’s potentially worrisome.  And no mention in the article which antivirals are being used, though of course one suspects efavirenz.  I’ve heard rumors of a “street value” for efavirenz as a mind-altering drug, but not specifically of anyone smoking it.

Does anyone have more details on this?

(Thanks to H Heller for the link.)

Categories: Health Care, HIV, Infectious Diseases, Misc, Patient Care, Policy
Tags: , , , ,


You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.

HIV Information: Author Paul Sax, M.D.

Paul E. Sax, MD

Contributing Editor

NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases

Biography | Disclosures | Summaries

Learn more about HIV and ID Observations.