Have you ever heard of "Oxi"?

Well, Brazil is certainly much more in the news in the newspapers that I check daily. Just today The Guardian published an alarming story about a new street drug about to "engulf" Brazil. It sounds just a bit over the top to me.

The article starts out as follows:

"Oxi: Twice as powerful as crack cocaine at just a fraction of the price

A highly addictive hallucinogenic has exploded on to South America's drug scene, with devastating consequences

The snakes come at night, darting out of the shadows and into Marcelo's subconscious. "You start thinking, 'There are people coming! The police are coming! A snake is coming! Everything is coming!' You panic. But there is no snake. No police. There's nobody there. There's nothing. You're just tripping out."

Marcelo is an illiterate 24-year-old drug addict whose home is a sliver of cardboard on the streets of Rio Branco, a riverside city in the Brazilian Amazon. His drug of choice is oxi, a highly addictive and hallucinogenic blend of cocaine paste, gasoline, kerosene and quicklime (calcium oxide) that is wreaking havoc across the Amazon region.

Oxi, or oxidado – "rust" – is the latest drug to surface in the Amazon. It is reputedly twice as powerful as crack cocaine and just a fifth of the price."

You can read the rest at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... th-america

Have you ever heard of Oxi?