A escalada do Paco

Com a queda na qualidade da cocaína produzida na Bolívia, a droga, rejeitada na Europa, acaba ficando disponível em maiores quantidades na Argentina e no Brasil.

Uma modalidade altamente viciante de resíduo de coca usado em forma parecida com o crack, chamada "Paco", está destruindo vidas no país, causando um ciclo de violência induzida pelo consumo de drogas sem precedentes.

O Brasil, apesar de todo o trabalho de repressão, ocupa hoje o segundo lugar na classificação de maior mercado consumidor, logo abaixo dos EUA.

A causa principal disto é o relaxamento nas restrições ao plantio de coca desde a chegada de Evo Morales à presidência da Bolívia. Com isto, houve uma "democratização" da coca nesta região da América do Sul, uma coca de baixa qualidade.

O Paco é a droga mais consumida em Ciudad Oculta (Cidade Oculta), um vilarejo de 15.000 habitantes próximo da capital.

The challenges to stopping the flow are immense. Fewer than 200 federal police officers patrol Brazil’s 2,100-mile border with Bolivia, though the Brazilian government says reinforcements are on the way. Only 10 percent of Argentina’s airspace is covered by radar, leaving traffickers free rein.

Cocaine seizures and major drug raids in both countries have surged in the past two years. The influx of raw cocaine paste used to make crack, from both Bolivia and Peru, has been particularly acute. In Brazil, such seizures by the federal police nearly quadrupled from 2006 to 2007, to 2,700 pounds from about 710 pounds , according to the police.

In Argentina, the deep financial crisis of late 2001 turned places like Ciudad Oculta into what are known here as villas miserias, or towns of misery, easily exploitable markets of impoverished people looking for escape.

“Cocaine is no longer the drug only of the elite, of high society,” said Luiz Carlos Magno, a Brazilian narcotics officer in the São Paulo State Police Department. “Today kids buy three lines of cocaine for 10 reals,” or about $6. For about $1 in Brazil and about $1.50 in Argentina, users can buy enough cocaine paste for a 15-minute high.

Paco is highly addictive because its high lasts just a few minutes — and so intense that many users smoke 20 to 50 cigarettes a day to try to make its effects linger. Paco is even more toxic than crack cocaine because it is made mostly of solvents and chemicals like kerosene, with just a dab of cocaine.

The surge in lower-quality cocaine hitting the streets has resulted from a crackdown by both governments on the chemicals needed to transform cocaine paste, or pasta base, as it is called, into powder form.

Tougher customs rules to track the flow of the chemicals, manufactured in large quantities in both places, have limited access for Bolivian traffickers seeking to refine the base cocaine into higher-value powder, said Gen. Roberto Uchõa, Brazil’s national drug secretary.

As the quality of Bolivian product has fallen off, the European market, in particular, has rejected the lower-quality drug, the general said. So more of it has gone to Argentina and Brazil. In São Paulo, the police say the cocaine on the streets is less than 30 percent pure. “Every year they are producing more, and that is driving down prices,” said Mr. Magno, with the state police.