The temporary relationship between the rapid spread of freebase cocaine/paco (PB/paco) and the extreme political-economic crisis (2001-2002) in Argentina engendered deep changes to the social networks, bodily characteristics and health issues of marginalized populations. The present article is based on ethnographic research that I carried out in three neighborhoods (villas) located in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. Here, I analyze the characteristics of practices and knowledge locally categorized as "care towards others", specifically drug users and, most specifically, PB/paco users. Taking as my point of departure the problematization of care in the social sciences and anthropology during the last decades, this paper examines the ways in which these practices and knowledge express conflicts and entrapments generated by the tensions between local traditions of care, on the one hand, and institutional strategies orientated to intensive drug use and modes of treating drug users, on the other.
Paco; Argentina; Margi-nalized Populations; Care