phr
Ex-Bluelighter
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Lost in an Abyss of Drugs, and Entangled by Poverty
ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
NY Times
7.29.09
BUENOS AIRES — The homecoming did not go as Pablo Eche had dreamed.
After 15 months in a rehabilitation clinic battling his addiction to paco, a highly addictive drug that has laid waste to thousands of lives in this country, Mr. Eche returned to Ciudad Oculta, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of this city.
Family members, including his mother, Bilma Acuña, an anti-paco community advocate, welcomed him back last October.
But their love was not enough. Within weeks, overcome by depression over his failure to find a job that could support his son and daughter, he once again turned to the drug for solace.
Barefoot and shirtless, his ribs poking out of his thin torso, he shuffled about in red soccer shorts in the diner with a bare concrete floor run by his family.
“This is what keeps me company now,” Mr. Eche, his eyes darting around nervously, said of the drug. Paco “doesn’t demand anything of me.”
“It doesn’t promise me anything, nothing at all.”
For more than five years Mr. Eche has been a slave to paco, a smokable drug made from bits of cocaine residue mixed with industrial solvents and kerosene or rat poison. Labeled “the scourge of the poor” by politicians, the drug has become the greatest social challenge facing shantytowns like Oculta.
In late 2007, when this reporter first visited Mr. Eche in the rehabilitation clinic, he spoke with clear eyes about the dangers of paco. He gracefully related his dreams to conquer his addiction, get a job and buy another house, after he had destroyed his last one and sold off the land to support his drug habit.
But back in Oculta, Mr. Eche, 27, was once again living like a vampire, avoiding daylight while venturing out at night in search of paco’s quick but intense highs. His dangerous lifestyle brought him into conflict with the police, and he escaped jail only by checking into a psychiatric hospital in late May.
Mr. Eche’s mother helped form Mothers Against Paco, which tries to save young people from falling prey to the drug. Her eyes cloud with sadness when she talks about her son.
“He has a lot of hate,” said Mrs. Acuña, 48. “Every time he comes out of treatment it is worse because he has nothing, no work. There is nothing for him to do.”
The majority of paco users go back to consuming after spending a year or two in treatment, she said. “They return with nothing, to the same place that made them sick.”
When Mr. Eche came back to Oculta, his mother and stepfather helped him find work at a community center for troubled children. But the salary was less than $30 a week, half the amount he had expected. The thought of trying to support his family on the modest sum sent the fragile Mr. Eche back into the abyss, back to paco, his mother said.
Ciudad Oculta sprouted in the 1950s, part of a wave of immigration from the countryside to the newly industrialized Buenos Aires. Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis deepened the bleak outlook for Oculta’s residents, said Jorge Tasín, who published a book about the shantytown in 2007.
Paco began arriving in 2003 as a cheaper alternative to snortable cocaine once Argentina became a destination for the final processing of cocaine flowing in from Bolivia and Peru. The growing supplies of leftover cocaine residue made creating paco fast and cheap. It sells on the street for as little as $1.30 a dose.
Even before he tried paco, Mr. Eche was troubled. In 2001, his 16-year-old brother David was shot dead by drug bandits after he witnessed a killing in Oculta. Six days later, Mr. Eche was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for post-traumatic stress.
Then in late 2003, he tried paco from a street dealer in Oculta. He was hooked. His brother Leandro also began using the drug, although Mrs. Acuña considers his addiction less severe.
Residents in Oculta say they do not trust local police officers, believing that many are involved in the drug trade. So the Mothers Against Paco turned to a federal judge, Sergio G. Torres, who ordered a series of raids by the federal police to root out dealers.
Since the operation began in late March, the police have conducted 25 raids in Ciudad Oculta, detained 19 people and seized the equivalent of more than 80,000 doses of paco, Judge Torres said. Investigators have found that in many cases paco is being marketed not by big-time dealers but by family enterprises in which women cook up the drugs in home kitchens.
Paco averages only 10 percent cocaine, with the rest being highly toxic substances, the judge said. “Doctors we have consulted say nerve cells and brain cells start dying soon after consumption begins,” he said.
Paco also wreaks havoc on the appetites of users, who literally die from not eating, Judge Torres said. The drug is so new there is no clear treatment protocol to break the addiction, he said.
Mr. Eche was wasting away before his mother’s eyes in late May when the police picked him up for suspected paco possession. Mrs. Acuña intervened and got a judge to drop the criminal case on the condition that she would check him into yet another psychiatric hospital.
On June 14, Mr. Eche’s birthday, the family surprised him at the hospital. They ate cake on a patio with an unexpected visitor — Mr. Eche’s son, Enzo, 5, who was granted special permission to enter the hospital. Mr. Eche began crying when Enzo ran into his arms, Mrs. Acuña said.
She is thankful for small blessings. With swine flu raging through Buenos Aires, Mr. Eche’s stay at the hospital has kept him from sleeping on the streets and being at greater risk of catching the virus, she said.
In another month, Mr. Eche will have to leave the hospital. His mother said she hoped to get him into yet another treatment center, this one run by a church. “I have to have faith that he will recover,” she said. “I will raise my hopes yet again.”
Beyond the police raids, Mrs. Acuña said, politicians need to get to the root of what is causing paco’s spread. Oculta’s residents are starving for jobs with decent salaries to help break the cycle of hopelessness that is creating whole families of paco addicts and dealers, she said.
She and her husband said they hoped to find the money to turn the upper floor of their diner into an integrated drug-prevention center employing psychologists and professional counselors.
Ultimately, only Oculta can save itself, Mrs. Acuña said.
“This is really up to us.”
Link!
ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
NY Times
7.29.09
BUENOS AIRES — The homecoming did not go as Pablo Eche had dreamed.
After 15 months in a rehabilitation clinic battling his addiction to paco, a highly addictive drug that has laid waste to thousands of lives in this country, Mr. Eche returned to Ciudad Oculta, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of this city.
Family members, including his mother, Bilma Acuña, an anti-paco community advocate, welcomed him back last October.
But their love was not enough. Within weeks, overcome by depression over his failure to find a job that could support his son and daughter, he once again turned to the drug for solace.
Barefoot and shirtless, his ribs poking out of his thin torso, he shuffled about in red soccer shorts in the diner with a bare concrete floor run by his family.
“This is what keeps me company now,” Mr. Eche, his eyes darting around nervously, said of the drug. Paco “doesn’t demand anything of me.”
“It doesn’t promise me anything, nothing at all.”
For more than five years Mr. Eche has been a slave to paco, a smokable drug made from bits of cocaine residue mixed with industrial solvents and kerosene or rat poison. Labeled “the scourge of the poor” by politicians, the drug has become the greatest social challenge facing shantytowns like Oculta.
In late 2007, when this reporter first visited Mr. Eche in the rehabilitation clinic, he spoke with clear eyes about the dangers of paco. He gracefully related his dreams to conquer his addiction, get a job and buy another house, after he had destroyed his last one and sold off the land to support his drug habit.
But back in Oculta, Mr. Eche, 27, was once again living like a vampire, avoiding daylight while venturing out at night in search of paco’s quick but intense highs. His dangerous lifestyle brought him into conflict with the police, and he escaped jail only by checking into a psychiatric hospital in late May.
Mr. Eche’s mother helped form Mothers Against Paco, which tries to save young people from falling prey to the drug. Her eyes cloud with sadness when she talks about her son.
“He has a lot of hate,” said Mrs. Acuña, 48. “Every time he comes out of treatment it is worse because he has nothing, no work. There is nothing for him to do.”
The majority of paco users go back to consuming after spending a year or two in treatment, she said. “They return with nothing, to the same place that made them sick.”
When Mr. Eche came back to Oculta, his mother and stepfather helped him find work at a community center for troubled children. But the salary was less than $30 a week, half the amount he had expected. The thought of trying to support his family on the modest sum sent the fragile Mr. Eche back into the abyss, back to paco, his mother said.
Ciudad Oculta sprouted in the 1950s, part of a wave of immigration from the countryside to the newly industrialized Buenos Aires. Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis deepened the bleak outlook for Oculta’s residents, said Jorge Tasín, who published a book about the shantytown in 2007.
Paco began arriving in 2003 as a cheaper alternative to snortable cocaine once Argentina became a destination for the final processing of cocaine flowing in from Bolivia and Peru. The growing supplies of leftover cocaine residue made creating paco fast and cheap. It sells on the street for as little as $1.30 a dose.
Even before he tried paco, Mr. Eche was troubled. In 2001, his 16-year-old brother David was shot dead by drug bandits after he witnessed a killing in Oculta. Six days later, Mr. Eche was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for post-traumatic stress.
Then in late 2003, he tried paco from a street dealer in Oculta. He was hooked. His brother Leandro also began using the drug, although Mrs. Acuña considers his addiction less severe.
Residents in Oculta say they do not trust local police officers, believing that many are involved in the drug trade. So the Mothers Against Paco turned to a federal judge, Sergio G. Torres, who ordered a series of raids by the federal police to root out dealers.
Since the operation began in late March, the police have conducted 25 raids in Ciudad Oculta, detained 19 people and seized the equivalent of more than 80,000 doses of paco, Judge Torres said. Investigators have found that in many cases paco is being marketed not by big-time dealers but by family enterprises in which women cook up the drugs in home kitchens.
Paco averages only 10 percent cocaine, with the rest being highly toxic substances, the judge said. “Doctors we have consulted say nerve cells and brain cells start dying soon after consumption begins,” he said.
Paco also wreaks havoc on the appetites of users, who literally die from not eating, Judge Torres said. The drug is so new there is no clear treatment protocol to break the addiction, he said.
Mr. Eche was wasting away before his mother’s eyes in late May when the police picked him up for suspected paco possession. Mrs. Acuña intervened and got a judge to drop the criminal case on the condition that she would check him into yet another psychiatric hospital.
On June 14, Mr. Eche’s birthday, the family surprised him at the hospital. They ate cake on a patio with an unexpected visitor — Mr. Eche’s son, Enzo, 5, who was granted special permission to enter the hospital. Mr. Eche began crying when Enzo ran into his arms, Mrs. Acuña said.
She is thankful for small blessings. With swine flu raging through Buenos Aires, Mr. Eche’s stay at the hospital has kept him from sleeping on the streets and being at greater risk of catching the virus, she said.
In another month, Mr. Eche will have to leave the hospital. His mother said she hoped to get him into yet another treatment center, this one run by a church. “I have to have faith that he will recover,” she said. “I will raise my hopes yet again.”
Beyond the police raids, Mrs. Acuña said, politicians need to get to the root of what is causing paco’s spread. Oculta’s residents are starving for jobs with decent salaries to help break the cycle of hopelessness that is creating whole families of paco addicts and dealers, she said.
She and her husband said they hoped to find the money to turn the upper floor of their diner into an integrated drug-prevention center employing psychologists and professional counselors.
Ultimately, only Oculta can save itself, Mrs. Acuña said.
“This is really up to us.”
Link!