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Felipe Dana / AP
A man smokes crack in the Manguinhos slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug. 7. Some drug bosses say they have stopped selling crack because it destabilizes their communities, making it harder to control areas long abandoned by the government. City authorities take credit for the change, arguing that drug gangs are trying to create a distraction and make police back off their offensive to take back the slums.
Business was brisk in the Mandela shantytown on a recent night. In the glow of a weak light bulb, customers pawed through packets of powdered cocaine and marijuana priced at $5, $10, $25. Teenage boys with semiautomatic weapons took in money and made change while flirting with girls in belly-baring tops lounging nearby.
Next to them, a gaggle of kids jumped on a trampoline, oblivious to the guns and drug-running that are part of everyday life in this and hundreds of other slums, known as favelas, across this metropolitan area of 12 million people. Conspicuously absent from the scene was crack, the most addictive and destructive drug in the triad that fuels Rio's lucrative narcotics trade.
-- Reported by the Associated Press
Felipe Dana / AP
Traffickers and users gather at a drug selling point in the Antares slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
Traffickers sell drugs in the Antares slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
People gather in an area known as "Crackland" inside the Manguinhos slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
A trafficker test fires a riffle in the Mandela slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
Traffickers sell drugs in the Antares slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
A trafficker stands at a drug selling point that stopped selling crack in the Mandela slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
A masked and armed trafficker at a drug selling point that no longer sells crack in the Mandela slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
Crack users gather under a bridge in the Antares slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Felipe Dana / AP
A crack user leaves a crack house near the Manguinhos slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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Its just good business sense not to sell crack. It causes people to line up and ask for more. Kind of like welfare. We could use some good business sense here. Could we get one of those smart dealers to be sec. of labor. We need jobs.
yea, but we don't need anymore spi.cs!!
wait till they get ahold of some bath salts,that crack will be lookin just fine!
Just pre-Olympic 2016 rhetoric - What a sight now! The government will be hard-pressed to clean that mess up before the games begin - Expect a high body count in the streets until then!!
Hey folks forget about Mister GAM. You guys made him or her the center of the attention! Those things happen in RIO is the same in here, no questions ask... The difference they're democratics. They show facts. In U.S. the democracy do not allow the midia show the real facts about how this new generation had been destroy using not just crack but other kind of drugs. Over there they spot users, police, politics, judges all in some way or another involved in the this large world of drugs. Over here, well!!! We're just about keep people away from vote! What wonderful democracy we're living!!!
Give me a break, I no more believe this bull than I believe the Cubs will win the World Series! And we know that won't happen either. They might stop selling crack but, only because they can't get the money in as fast as they do with cocaine. It's not for any other reason, don't let them tell you different.
And I do have a real nice bridge for sale in New York too!!
What?...the Cubs won't win The Series? C'mon man...that's like saying the next Olympics is scheduled to take place in a city where the police have virtually no control over large portions of it.
looking at those picture... people are afraid of hell after death and I wonder if this isn't hell already. It sure looks like. Hell has many layers, those are the deep bowels of it while only some of us in this planet live close to the surface overlooking a very distant heaven high up there, but just a step away from that. It just gives chills to my life to look to those deep far down abisms of hell in our planet. It is so easy to drift that low. one swift of that substance will take you there.
and whores are saying no to sex... pigs are saying yes to flying!
"The only good dope dealer, is a dead one."
.
It is good that traffickers are putting a step away from crack, but the solution to the drugs problem will be to exterminate the demand. Lets not forget an essential rule of business: No demand = no offer = no business, it is that simple.
The slums in Rio de Janeiro appear startlingly similar to the slums of many inner cities in the United States. We have a lot in common with these folks; we have the exact same social problems compounded by errant economic policies, of which both leave the same destructive effects evident in these photographs. As a matter of fact "the third world" exist all over the world, in almost every "first world nation."
Truth be told, the "third world" covers most of the planet, with only pockets of wealth that marks the "first world."
No first world nation escapes this reality.
For a sobering reality, 80% of all human beings live on less than $10.00 per day.
1 out of every 2 children are born into deprived circumstances, of which we label poverty.
Think about this folks. Very few people on our planet enjoy access to wealth and essential resources.
What makes this such a travesty is that currently, we have the resources and the means to produce enough for everyone to have and live comfortably.
Then what is the difference between those who have and those who don't?
Access.
All humans are not created equally. The hard workers and intelligent do not want to support lazy dumb losers. Welfare has created the poverty.... when you feed the poor, all you get are more and more poor. Elimination of welfare and handouts is what will reduce and eliminate poverty. In a world where everyone is equal, no one wants to do the work or take the risk of having a business. Why bother when you will be fed for free? Problem is, when the loser and the farmer are paid the same, good luck finding a farmer when you need one.
But come on now they have ethanol and that makes everything better. You can cut down the rain forest so you can grow sugar cane, thats good, right? Look how its helped the people.
Legalize all these drugs, tax and sell them cheaply, and let people kill themselves with them. Overpopulation is destroying this planet. What a perfect and cheap solution to getting rid of societies losers and problems. Let the drug losing trash overdose and die. This would be a good thing... Darwins law at its best. The money wasted on fighting illegal drugs and treating the deadbeat losers that use the drugs is just that... A TOTAL WASTE. This would also destroy organized crime in the process. Many birds killed with one stone.
I am guessing the death squads are about to be reinstated down there.
Welcome to Rio one of the best dressed cities of the Third world countries. Crackheads tend to hurt themselves and are not good reliable repeat customers. This is going to be interesting to see how they cover up this part of the nastiest cities in the world so that the nice clean cut Olympic stars and do their things. On the news we will see things like this USA Three gold medals, Rio three overdosed tourist were found.... and the other news three Tourist found shot to death on a Rio slum alleyway. This wil be a regular thing in the news except the reporting wil be censored and you won't hear about the overdose and the killings until after the Olympics. The World has be=come so corrupt that a Worthless USA President can win the Nobel prize for peace before he takes office and the Olympic committee can choose a place as corupt as Rio for an Olympic game. The end to a civilized world is very near. I'm old and i won't see the worst part of it thank God but I worry about my children and their children.
Jeez, aren't they honorable? No, they're still scumbags, working hard to destroy their society.
Looks just like home don't it !!
Now I hope all see why we must NEVER allow illegal drugs to be Legalized in this country
It is hard to accept that a goverment and it's law enforcement authorities can loose control of large areas of your country or possible the entire country. This just goes to show that LAW & Order is more than a force. It is also the spirit of a nation. When this spirit is destroyed by rogue goverments and corrupted police authorities, lawlessness prevails at a rate that no force on earth will stop.
LOVE the LORD with all your heart. He is the keeper of all things. Have respect for the life and livelyhood of your fellow man.
Personally I've had to say no to crack. There are not enough unmarried women who are not train wrecks to care about crack anymore.
Sounds like the drug dealers in Rio have more humanity than those in the US.
They still sell pure powder cocaine at $12 a gram. The stuff they can cut it with is more expensive than the drug so they don't. It is easy to make crack with baking soda. This is a play on the public's ignorance of drugs in Brazil. Nobody is going to go without crack in Brazil.
Crystal Meth. is just starting to become popular.
Pot smokers are considered just as bad as any addict of harder drugs because of government propaganda..
I wonder what will happen when they discover the Krokodile drug that is being used in Russia.
So let me get this straight..According to the dealers crack is bad but powder is OK....Wow that kinda sounds like something Obama might say....I can here him now - "Mitt Romney is a man who knows how to run a business and make money for that business, and we don't need a guy like that running this Country do we folks? We are happy not having any jobs, and relying on our government to support us because that's what Socialism is all about."......Obama should go ahead and run on that platform because it's obviously how he really feels.....Read more stories like this one at koolaidstand blogspot com
They're still selling powder cocaine which can be converted to crack in a minute with baking soda. This city deserves a high-five? I am shaking my head in disbelief.
"We are just trying to make a living..."
Selling drugs is not a living. It's selling death, stupidity, and fueling suffering.
Go ahead, buy your drugs. Drugs are for losers, and half you people are losers doing drugs anyways. So I hope you take your drugs, and die. Drug users deserve to die, and drug dealers deserve to be executed.
Rio can burn. Leaders there are nothing but overpayed drug lords, so they can go die too.
KeyOrion...I'm just guessing here, but it sounds like you have a strong opinion regarding drugs, would that be correct?
There looks like there is too much to accomplish before the next Olympics. The only thing they can do is secure off the drug areas from tourism. Rio was simply just a bad choice for the next Olympics. Too much corruption and not enough educated in places of management and power to turn it around. It will not be a family situation but probably a good party place for the next Olympics and party heads.
By the way, butt555, it looks like you simply have nothing good to say about anything. However the picture of your sister looks great, will she be on the real streets as well? You cannot even give a good, and for the space program. You put down other cultures and people, and yes extremely funny that people like you that never have anything good to say, are truly dragging anchors on society. Get a life. In and start living that you maggot.