COCAINE AND CULTURE: DRUG USE SOARS AMONG BRAZIL'S URBAN MASSES

RIO DE JANEIRO - There is a deadly new drug problem in Latin
America's largest country: cocaine consumption.

Brazil once was mainly a transit point for cocaine from Colombia,
Bolivia and Peru bound for the United States and Europe. But today,
Brazil has become one of the world's largest markets for illicit
drugs, particularly cocaine.

That has changed an important dynamic in the drug war: a belief in
Latin America that U.S. demand alone has fueled the vast illegal-drug
industry.

"Cocaine use is becoming globalized," said a U.S. diplomat in Latin
America. "We're all in this together now."

But Brazil leads the way. U.S. officials and Brazilian academics
estimate the volume of cocaine and its cheaper derivatives being sold
and consumed in this nation of 170 million has equaled or surpassed
that in European nations such as Germany and France.

The United States, with 280 million inhabitants, they say, is now the
only nation clearly consuming more cocaine than Brazil, although
smaller nations may have higher per capita consumption.

Powdered cocaine has long been consumed by the glitzy rich of Rio and
Sao Paulo, in small quantities. The new boom stems from a surge in
cheaper forms that even Brazil's vast underclass can afford. In Sao
Paulo, the third-largest city in the world, crack cocaine has hit the
ghettos. In Rio, the drug of choice is low-quality powder cut with
aspirin and sold in small plastic bags for about $1.50.

A recent U.N. report estimated that 900,000 people in Brazil use
cocaine - 0.7 percent of the population. Although this falls far
short of the 3 percent U.S. consumption rate (about 5.3 million
people), Brazil's new "cocaine culture" has set off a highly
magnified version of the urban drug violence once so common in U.S.
cities.

Brazil's continuing role as a major shipping point makes cocaine
comparatively cheap. Along porous borders with Colombia, Peru and
Bolivia, cocaine costs as little as $2,000 a kilo. The price is
roughly $4,000 on the streets of urban Brazil, or about 20 percent of
the street price in New York City, authorities say.

Brazilian slums, meanwhile, have turned into urban battlefields ruled
by "drug commands" that act as alternative governments. They offer
slum dwellers security patrols, food baskets, new soccer fields and
even entertainment.

At the same time, the cocaine industry has infiltrated Brazilian
politics and business. A recent 18-month congressional investigation
tied 827 prominent Brazilians to drug trafficking, drug dealing and
money laundering. They included two congressmen, 15 state
legislators, four mayors, six bank directors, and a host of police
officers and judges.

Argemiro Procopio, professor of international relations at the
University of Brasilia who is one of the country's leading experts on
drug consumption, said: "Not only are we witnessing an alarming hike
in cocaine consumed by the rich and middle class, but cocaine has
become democratized. Even the poor are getting hooked. We can't hide
from this problem anymore."

"The (poor) kids often become cheap labor for the traffickers," said
Monique Vidal, chief of the Rio police department's Office for
Children and Adolescents. "We're fighting boys as young as 11 years
old with machine guns in their hands. Once the dealers get to them,
they don't last very long. They die quickly."

Drug commands deploy what police here dub "weapons of war" including
high-powered explosives and, on at least one occasion, anti-tank
missiles.

One recent morning, a band of 40 "cocaine commandos" as young as 14
used assault rifles, fired armor-piercing bullets and lobbed hand
grenades in a half-hour battle with police in the shadows of Rio's
towering statue of Christ on Mount Corcovado.

Partly as a result of drug turf wars, Brazil's annual homicide rate
has more than doubled since the mid-1980s, to 28 killings per 100,000
people.

In all of Brazil, more than 70 percent of homicides are now caused by
firearms, the highest rate of any country not at war, according to
U.N. reports. The link to drugs, Brazilian officials say, is obvious.

Drug-related violence is devastating families, who analysts say are
struggling with greater rates of marital separation and domestic
violence. The drug habit is also overburdening prisons; crowding and
poor conditions have sparked several deadly uprisings this year.

In Rocinha, Latin America's largest slum, a festering ghetto of
170,000 people that creeps up one of the jade-colored hills of south
Rio, most adults turn away when asked about the dealers. But not
Michael Jordan da Silva.

Asked if he knows people who have died from drugs or turf wars,
Michael, 11, lowered his head. "What do you think? Of course. The
guns go off every night."