President Dilma Rousseff, determined to crack Brazil's drug problem
"For everyone it is a big surprise that the [crack] problem is now so huge," says Arthur Guerra, a professor at the University of São Paulo and expert on drug and alcohol abuse in Brazil. "I guess we made some mistakes in recent years."
São Paulo's Cracolândia first emerged in the 1980s when Brazil became a transit point for the cocaine trade between the South American producing countries - mainly Colombia, Bolivia and Peru - and Europe. "In 2009, Brazil was the most prominent transit country in the Americas - in terms of number of
seizures - for
cocaine consignments seized in Europe," the United Nations said in its World Drug Report 2011. It said number of seizure cases involving Brazil as a transit point rose from 25 in 2005 to 260 in 2009, or from 339kg to 1.5 tonnes.
Along the way, the traffickers discovered a ready market in Latin America's biggest economy, including for crack, which costs as little as R5 a rock. Between 2004 and 2009, the amount of cocaine seized in Brazil rose threefold. Although data on the number of crack users are unavailable, a study of Brazil's
municipalities shows that 91 per cent of the 4,430 cities surveyed have a crack problem, from São Paulo to the Amazon.
"It's a Latin American problem," says Eloisa de Sousa Arruda, secretary of justice for São Paulo state, of the drug trade. "We don't produce cocaine here." Even so, São Paulo city claims it is Brazil's most advanced municipality in dealing with crack. Since 2009, it has established health clinics for users and has employed hundreds of workers to roam the streets to help addicts.
Following the police action in Cracolândia, 186 users have been treated for addiction, scores arrested and nearly 64kg of drugs seized, says Januário Montone, São Paulo municipal secretary of health.
The problem in Brazil, however, argues Mr Montone, is that except in extreme circumstances there is no
compulsory treatment of addicts, as in some other countries. This means they usually leave treatment after a few days, quickly
relapsing into drug use and returning to the streets.
He says Brazil needs a national discourse to debate legal reforms such as making treatment obligatory for those caught in possession of drugs. "If this debate does not happen, we will continue to go around in circles," he says.
For now, though, Cracolândia is free of traffickers. During a recent public holiday, Christian groups staged a noisy parade through the area. They are at the
vanguard of what is expected to be a middle class revival of the district, which is surrounded by many of the city's finest historic buildings and much potentially valuable real estate.
"The idea is just to get these people off the streets," says Adriano da Costa, a member of the "Snowball" church, a popular evangelist group started by a Brazilian surfer.
But while the drug problem has moved on the area, few believe it has disappeared. In the park, crack addicts lie comatose below a huge monument to the Duke of Caixas, a 19th century Brazilian war hero, ignoring a music festival being staged for their benefit by church groups.
Jacques Francis Moreira, an addict wandering through the area barefoot, explains the crux of the problem. It is impossible to quit crack, he says. "It's just so strong, the addiction is so strong."