Codeine medicine abuse among students at a semi-metropolitan university in Limpopo province, South Africa

The focus of this article is on Codeine medicine abuse among students at institutions of higher learning, with a focus on a semi-metropolitan University situated in Limpopo province, South Africa. Most studies in health and social sciences focus on drug and alcohol abuse. Very little attention is ever paid to the abuse of some over-the-counter medicines such as codeine. Codeine medicine is a prescription drug that was created to suppress pain, such as colds and flu. These over-the-counter medicines are abused by young people for fun or to get high. Codeine medicines are some of the over-the-counter medicines that are often abused by young people for this purpose. The study uses the learning theory, which emphasizes that learning can be acquired through experiencing direct behaviour. In this study, the qualitative ap-proach was used to gather in-depth information about the experiences of students in codeine medicine usage among students. Non-probability snowball sampling method was used in this study to select ten (10) students with specific characteristics in such a sample. The population of the study consisted of students who were studying at the University of Venda. Data collection was done using online one-to-one inter-views. The data was analysed through the thematic analysis method. Ethical principles were adhered to for confidentiality and to avoid harming the research participants. The findings of the study are that most of the students use codeine medicine to chill out instead of using it for medical purposes. The study rec-ommends that students should have more awareness campaigns against the abuse of codeine medicines.