Number of crack users reaches 370,000 in Brazil’s capital cities

Criado em 19/09/13 19h31 e atualizado em 23/09/13 09h45
Por Thais Leitão Edição:s Fonte:Agência Brasil

Brasília – Regular users of crack or similar types of smoked cocaine (cocaine paste, merla and oxi) amount to 370 thousand people in the 26 Brazilian capitals and the Federal District. They are considered a hidden, hard-to-reach sector of the population, and represent 35% of all illegal drug users (marijuana not included) in these municipalities, who are estimated at 1 million Brazilians.

The figures are from a study called “Estimates on the Number of Users of Crack and/or Other Similar Substances in the Country’s Capital”, released on Thursday (September 19) by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health.

According Vitore Maximiano, national secretary for Policies on Drugs of the Ministry of Justice, the number of regular users of this type of drug is “significant”, although it corresponds to 0.8% of the people in the capitals (45 million). “It’s not little at all to have 370 thousand people using crack on a regular basis. It’s a significant number and it shows that we should be deeply concerned with this issue.”

According to the study, there are approximately 150 thousand crack users in the Brazil’s Northeast, which represents around 40% of all regular crack users in the country’s capital cities. For the secretary it is surprising to note that, in absolute numbers, this region concentrates the majority of users, contrary to common-sense belief that consumption is highest in the Southeast. The reason is that the use is usually more conspicuous in the Southeast where it takes place at daylight, most notably in the “cracolândias” – public areas where crack-users meet to use the drug.

The ratio of crack consumption compared to the total amount of illegal drug use (marijuana excluded) also varies from region to region. Whereas crack and similar substances account for 20% of all illegal substances used in the North, in the South and Central-West regions they correspond to 52% and 47% respectively.

The survey further revealed that 14% of the 370 thousand users of crack and similar substances are under age. This means that around 50 thousand children and teenagers make use of the substance on a regular basis in the country’s capital cities. Most of them (56%) are also concentrated in northeastern capitals, where 28 thousand minors have been found in this situation.

Twenty-five thousand people were heard from March to December in conducting this study. They answered questions on the characteristics of the people within their social circles. Some of the questions focused specifically on crack abuse, whereas other questions were used as reliability guidelines for the information, with the answers matched to data from public agencies (e.g. the number of acquaintances known to be enrolled in the Bolsa Família welfare grant program).

Editors: Talita Cavalcante / Olga Bardawil
Translators: Fabrício Ferreira