Project Coast was a 1980s top-secret chemical and biological weapons (CBW) program instituted by the apartheid-era government of South Africa.
The perception that its enemies had access to battlefield chemical and biological weapons (CBW) led South Africa to begin expanding its program, initially as a defensive measure and by researching vaccines.
[3]: 52 Project Coast created a progressively larger variety of lethal offensive CBW toxins and biotoxins, in addition to the defensive measures.
Both methaqualone and MDMA (along with the deliriant BZ) were manufactured in large quantities and successfully weaponized into a fine dust or aerosol form that could be released over a crowd as a potential riot control agent.
[3] A list of purchases at RRL and other documents include references to such things as the snake, biological agents such as anthrax, brucellosis, cholera and salmonella among others, and chemicals including aluminium phosphide, thallium acetate, sodium azide, sodium cyanide, mercury oxycyanide, cantharides, colchicine, powerful anticoagulants such as brodifacoum, phenylsilatranes, strychnine, paraquat, "knockout drops", digoxin, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as aldicarb and paraoxon and other poisons.
[7] In 1985, four SWAPO detainees held at Reconnaissance Regiment headquarters were allegedly given a sleeping drug in soft drinks, taken to Lanseria airport outside Johannesburg, and injected with three toxic substances supplied by Basson.
Goosen reported that the project had developed a 'vaccine' for males and females and that the researchers were still searching for a means by which it could be delivered to make black people sterile without them being made aware.
[9] Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies.
[9] According to Miles Jackson, while the focus on Apartheid South Africa’s research into fertility is barely part of the ongoing discussion regarding Project Coast, what occurred could constitute conspiracy to commit genocide under international law.