’Paco’ Emerges as Devastating Drug Problem in Argentina

“Paco,” a cheap mixture of cocaine residue mixed with industrial solvents, kerosene or even rat poison, has become a major drug of abuse in the slums of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the New York Times reported July 29.

In shantytowns like Cuidad Oculta, paco has become “the scourge of the poor,” providing a quick but intense high but also leading to addiction, brain damage and rapid weight loss. Some users get clean in treatment, only to return to using paco when they come home to the same crushing poverty they left a year or two earlier.

Paco has been around since about 2003, a byproduct of the processing of cocaine coming in from Peru and Bolivia. A hit costs as little as $1.30. The marketplace is not dominated by big-time drug dealers but rather by poor women who mix up the drug in their kitchens at home. Paco contains only about 10 percent cocaine.