A new scourge sweeps through Argentine ghettos: 'paco'

Last April, La Nacion, a leading newspaper here, quoted Claudio Mate, a ranking health official from Buenos Aires' provincial government, as saying that intense paco consumption can cause "cerebral death" in as little as six months.

Paco is cheap. It usually goes for about 30 cents a dose, enough for a powerful two-minute high. Jerimias was hooked from the first hit.

"I saw a guy using it and asked him to give me some," says Jerimias, who has gone three and a half months without the drug. "When I smoked it my body took control. I had to have it. I started selling everything I had."

Pablo Rafael Kodrec, director of a small Buenos Aires drug clinic where half of the 24 patients are paco addicts, says the drug's silver lining is its quick destruction, which makes patients seek help faster.

"It's not like cocaine or marijuana or ecstasy, where an addict can go for years without seeking help," he says. "They tend to come in quickly."

Like crack in 1980s America, paco has become a metaphor for societal problems.

Parroting a common refrain from experts interviewed for this story, Nadra says paco is fundamentally a social and economic issue. He says the roots of the growing scourge of paco are "social and spiritual dislocation" caused by an increase in poverty.

To strike at its distribution channels, Argentine lawmakers on Dec. 9 passed a new law that expanded enforcement nets by letting provincial courts and police join federal forces in enforcing drug laws.

There have been gains. In late February, provincial police seized 7,000 doses of paco in 19 different raids. But critics say provincial police aren't using their power to strike at traffickers. Of 1,724 drug arrests between Dec. 11, 2005 and Jan. 29, 2006, 84 percent were for personal consumption, and only 3 percent were for paco, according to government data cited by Pagina 12, a leading newspaper, last month. Martín Arias Duval, second in charge of Buenos Aires's provincial ministry of security, says police are in "a transition period" and that catching traffickers is more demanding. "The trafficking cases generally require more previous work" such as catching traffickers on film, he told Pagina 12. "That takes some time and delay."

But the market for paco is growing. "Now rich kids are doing it too, like in Mar De Plata [a popular beach resort]," says Jerimias. "They say it's only poor people but they come in wearing nice clothes and driving expensive cars and eventually they come back in sandals."

He says he is scared to go back to his old neighborhood where old habits lie. But remembering his lowest moments helps.

"It was when I had nothing left to sell," he says. "That's when I asked for help."

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