Ricardo Moraes / Reuters
Addictive behaviorA youth consumes crack on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, March 19. Many Brazilian cities now have their own "cracklands," areas where swarms of addicts have converted entire neighborhoods into nocturnal encampments doubling as open-air crack markets. At nightfall throngs of stupefied buyers crowd around dealers before skulking away behind the telltale glow of cigarette lighters. Sociologists, health experts and law enforcement officials all agree that crack use is a rapidly growing problem that puts Brazil, host of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, squarely in the center of the international drug trade.
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