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Subscribe to RSSReuters reports from Sao Paulo — When night falls, street crack marketplaces open for business.
The gritty transactions of the drug trade take over in city neighborhoods that hum with legitimate commerce by day. Throngs of stupefied buyers crowd around dealers before skulking away behind the telltale glow of cigarette lighters.
These are not the images that Brazil wants to project.
Ricardo Moraes / Reuters
A youth consumes crack on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on March 19, 2012. Many Brazilian cities now have their own "cracklands," areas of the city where swarms of crack users have converted entire neighborhoods into nocturnal encampments doubling as open-air crack markets.
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
A combination picture shows a street in Sao Paulo during the day and at night on March 19, 2012.
Lunae Parracho / Reuters
A drug user consumes crack in the old center of Salvador da Bahia on March 19, 2012.
Reuters photographers recently spent 24 hours in eight of those cities chronicling their "cracklands," as the neighborhoods have come to be known. They went from the decrepit center of Sao Paulo, South America's biggest city, to the waterfront slums of Rio de Janeiro. From the Amazonian capital of Manaus, to the colonial tourist hub of Salvador.
In each, swarms of crack users have converted entire swaths of central neighborhoods into nocturnal encampments doubling as open-air crack marketplaces.
The images reflect what sociologists, health experts and law enforcement officials say is a rapidly growing problem that puts Brazil squarely in the center of the international drug trade. Read the full report.
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Crack addicts quarrel on a street in Sao Paulo on March 19, 2012.
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Crack addicts consume the drug on a street in Sao Paulo on March 20, 2012.
Ricardo Moraes / Reuters
Crack consumers gather in the Gloria neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro on March 19, 2012.
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let them all OD and put an end to the problem..
Mary52, This is a world wide problem. I'm sure your city is crawling with crack heads at night also. I'ts a very sad situation. The addiction to this type of pure cocaine is overwhelming. I am completely against stealing for your habit but if you work and you want to throw your money away, who am I to judge you for your lifestyle. Not insinuating anything about you mary but just talking in general. I do not wish death upon anyone, however.
good free crack (USDA)
Until the World does what China, and other several nations do, that is,find one guilty of drug sales at 9 AM and a bullet in the back of the head by 5.00PM this mess will continue. The time frame could be adjusted as needed for fairness but up to a point.
"TIME TO THIN OUT THE HERD"
agree with you totally, all it takes is 1 or 2 and the drug world could afford that then i think the message would get threw to them,
A world divided into haves and have-nots with little or no social mobility is always going to manifest these problems. Late stage capitalism which afflicts the world with its nasty, brutish war of all against all is as much at the root of the problem as anything. Enough already, bring on Socialism.
If you want socialism so much, then feel free to go to North Korea.
Jordan-1234, read your history, North Korea is FAR from socialism, it's more like totalitarianism..........big difference regardless of what side of the fence you bat for!
fritzNH, warren-2153708 - I'm watching this socialism ideas gaining power in countries which never really experienced it already for some time. and it's worrying.
I'm from Slovakia - we have our history of socialism, my parents experienced it, I've experienced it and I can still feel it in the messedup mentality of local people. some of the ideas aren't bad. but it's all very naive. it just doesn't work and it will never ever work. just because of the missing connection to reality and human mentality. it's no escape from the current situation as many people imagine (no wonder). the dangerous thing is that if you believe in it - it's also easy to manipulate you.
It will make things only worse. you can look around the globe - there is no country where socialism really works and it's usually very poor countries (or at least countries with close to no human rights). guess why. socialism is just a nice abstract picture shown to the people but behind the curtains it will always be totalitarianism. I'd be very careful with that in your place.
It is a shame when people remember that Brazil was the only country in Latin America that stood up and sent troops to help fight Nazis in WW2.
Two choices - legalize drugs, set up "safe" zones, help where possible (Religious orginzations, Salvation Army, all those screaming we need to help, etc), police patrols, contain it as much as possible. Controls like with booze are better than no control at all. Gov gets the tax $, users are helped (at least a little).
Choice 2 - real war on drugs. Caught with it you are sent to a prisoner of war camp for the duration of the war. Drug dealers selling more than X amount of drugs - put up against a wall and shot.
Either will work. I think # 1 is more humane.
The fact that you even mention the 2nd 'choice' shows your insanity. The 2nd 'choice' is not a 'choice' at all. It is SUCCUBING to one's own negative emotions, that's all. No sane person would ever 'choose' your 2nd 'choice'.
Get real, man...
The ONLY 'choice' is minding your own business, and NOT succumbing to insanity.
totally agree,
The solution is legalization. It's the only 'solution'. There is no other, obviously. Otherwise, the problem would have been taken care of long ago.
How much longer will people put up with this colossal waste of their respective nations' resources?
Thomas A Paine II, your name is wasted as you are the only one not displaying "common sense". Look at these wretchs, legal or illegal the end result is still the same. Crack and other "hardcore" drugs are a threat to man kind. I am not talking about pot or alcohol. Crack, cocaine, meth, and heroin are the worst things to happen to humanity since the plague. It's time to get serious with this s&%t. Get busy living or get busy dying, thin the herd is right. The only solution is the final one. Of course I will be vilified for saying that and no one will do it so we will just sit back and watch all of society collapse in the end. One day people will cry out "Why did we not do what was necessary at the time to save mankind?". Just as a cancer must be cut from the heathly cells to protect the body so must these cancers be removed from society before they can infect others, and breed generations of addicts. We must do the unthinkable, as the end will justify the means.
Why do they eerily look like zombies from Walking Dead?
That's because thay are......The walking dead.....Meth is not bad ,it is EVIL !!!!It robs the user of any "normal"thoughts and leaves them tweeking like a monkey on a chain....chip,chip,chip!! God help them to put it behind them.i have family that did get past it....it takes the support and love of a family.without that they just keep doing it with deadly results....I HATE IT !!!!!!my best friend is a slave to it and it kills me to watch him wither away.....God Help Them All.....