In Lesotho, hotspotting usually involves crystal meth, which has become one of the most common drugs in urban areas.
Lesotho has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, and as Tumisi points out, bluetoothing increases the risk of spreading the virus as well as other blood-borne diseases.
Tumisi, 45, is now a public relations officer for Mokhosi oa Mangoana (A Mother’s Cry), a women’s organisation spearheading the fight against substance abuse in Lesotho, a landlocked country surrounded by South Africa, where half the population live below the poverty line.“You would be shocked what parents are doing for their children out of love but unknowingly aiding substance abuse.
Some are made to purchase different items and substances under the pretext of learning materials,” Tumisi says.
Young people, who sometimes do not have enough money to buy the drugs they want, are exposing themselves to all kinds of dangers by injecting themselves with the blood of others,” he says.“A fix may cost R300 [about £12] and they contribute money and only one person takes the drugs.
Once that person gets intoxicated, their friends then draw his or her blood and inject it into their own veins to get high.“They call it hotspotting, but there are lot of terms that we hear the youths using when we do our youth development initiatives,” he adds.
When Tumisi realised her daughter was taking drugs, she contacted another woman, Mamphana Molosti, who lived in a neighbouring village and had been attacked by her drug addicted son.
They decided to form an association of women in similar situations.
