Drugs in Brazil: Cracking up

The world’s biggest crack market seeks a better way to deal with addicts
The Economist (UK)
Saturday, April 6, 2013

São Paulo’s Cracolândia was Brazil’s first and is still its biggest. It is home to 2,000 addicts. But most Brazilian cities now have similar districts. Recent studies put the country’s crack-using population at 1m-1.2m, the world’s largest. Some city governments have used strong-arm tactics against the crack epidemic—with little effect other than to fill prisons, which have more than twice as many inmates as a decade ago.