Cocaine comes of course from Colombia though there are also major refineries on and near the borders with Ecuador and Peru. From there a large part of it goes north to the US through a long and contorted route via the Caribbean and Central America, allowing just about every customs agent, government official and smuggler between Bogota and Miami to get a cut of the action.
A good deal of it comes south through the Amazon though to meet domestic consumption needs in Brazil and of course a good deal from there also makes it's way to the States or to Europe by plane or ship. The Amazon is so large and porous that it's utterly impossible to prevent the trafficking of cocaine to Brazil - the customs police are either corrupt or utterly unable to match the skills of the local guides and the firepower of the coke mafia.
At first it's hard to imagine the poor snorting cocaine. Okay, we've been introduced to the idea of crack ghettos in the big cities of the West but coke itself is still wrapped up in the glamour and mystique of something rare and precious to be consumed only by the elite. The drug of choice of rock stars, celebrities and the aspiring middle class cocaine owes it's high price tags to an economic supply as artificial as that of diamonds - another disgusting mafia industry.
The fact is that cocaine is cheap as shit throughout South America and it makes a nice change from drinking beer from time to time. The poor need ways to forget their misery and the young look for ways top have fun and coke is a temporary solution for both. It's also highly addictive and illegal and all of this is enough to interest the drug lords in Brazil who will make a buck on anything.
The most famous drug traffickers in Brazil are those in Rio de Janeiro where the favelas, the slums perched on the hills, constitute power centres for the cocaine mafia and there are constant power struggles for the right to feed the habits of the locals. The cocaine cartels in Rio de Janeiro share the favelas between them but are often at war with each other and will send armed gangs in to invade and take over another favela several times a year. In the meantime the military police are also trying to get in on the action and they storm the favelas in the hope of finding a huge stash of coke and then selling it back to the dealers.
So it's no secret that if you want to buy cocaine in Brazil you could do worse than hang around a favela. You could do better also as the police know this and if they see any foreign traveller leaving a favela it's for sure they'll search him in the hope of extracting some baksheesh.
I knew one dealer, a huge villain with rippling fat who used to walk up to the favela, buy his coke and then stroll back down again in front of the police. How did he do it? He used to walk up there in nothing but a pair of shorts and then hide his purchased coke in the ripples of fat beneath his armpits. What cop was going to search him for drugs there?
When I first passed the favela near my house in Ipanema I head some kids say to me 'white, black'. I thought at first he was referring to the difference in our skin colours. It was only later I learnt that 'white' was cocaine and 'black' was marijuana. The kids are the ones who sell the stuff as minors can't be busted for selling coke.
Over the 6 months I lived in Rio de Janeiro I saw local guys sniffing big lines of cocaine off the roofs of cars or else huddling in a corner to sniff a few grams of coke at a time out of little plastic bags. Brazilians develop tolerance just as much as any traveller and the poor in Rio de Janeiro probably take more in a weekend than the average rock band in a month.
Brazil Travel Stories - Gringoes.com offers a range of Brazil tales. A little fluffy but in good spirit.
Rio de Janeiro guide - Ipanema.com is a cool, sexy site that gives you the lowdow on carioca culture.
Lonely Planet Brazil - Of course there's always the LP perspective.
BBC Brazil Profile - A sober look at the history, society and economy of the country