Rainbow Vice: The Drugs and Sex Industries in the New South Africa

The fast growing drug culture in the new South Africa is tightly linked to the world of commercial sex and in conflict with a profoundly Christian population. Here, Ted Leggett shows how varied, across the different ethnic groups, the drug scene is. He pays special attention to South Africa's very own (and widespread) indigenous dagga (cannabis) and the much newer Mandrax (or 'buttons). He explains what is known of the drugs and examines the South African governments's inherited policy of blanket prohibition of all vice. The links are made between prohibition, its impact on rural growers of dagga, the underpaid and corrupt police force, and the spread of HIV-AIDS. The book also aims to make clear South Africa's growing integration into the international drug trade as entrepot, exporter and import market. His principal concern, given that prohibition is not working, is to think through a sophisticated and differentiated set of alternative strategies around decriminalization, legalization and other measures.