Cracking up

摘要

On the pavements around Parque da Luz in Sao Paulo's old city-centre, skeletal rag-covered figures loll. This is the heart of the district known as Cracolandia ("Crackland")-a few dozen streets used since the 1990s as an open-air crack den. As addicts moved in, law-abiding businesses and residents fled. Those who remain pay rock-bottom rents, pull down their shutters at 6pm and stay in at night. Sao Paulo's Cracolandia 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.