LEGAL MATTERS
If something is stolen from you, you can report it to the police. No big investigation is going to occur, but you will get a police report to give to your insurance company. The police, however, aren't always to be trusted. Brazilian police have upon occasion planted drugs and stung gringos for bribes.
Speaking of drugs, the former military regime had a pathological aversion to drugs and enacted stiff penalties, which are still in force. Drugs provide a perfect excuse for the police to extract a fair amount of money from you, and Brazilian prisons are brutal places.
Police checkpoints along the highways stop cars and buses at random. Police along the coastal drive from Rio to Sao Paulo are notorious for hassling young people and foreigners. Border areas are also dangerous, particularly around the Bolivian border.
A large amount of cocaine is smuggled out of Bolivia and Peru through Brazil . Be very careful with drugs. If you're going to buy, don't buy from strangers and don't carry anything around with you.
Marijuana is plentiful in Brazil and very illegal. Nevertheless, it's widely used, and, like many other things in Brazil , everyone except the military and the police has a rather tolerant attitude towards it. Bahia
seems to have the most open climate. But because of the laws against possession, you won't bump into much unless you know someone or go to an `in' vacation spot with the young and hip, such as Arraial d'Ajuda, Morro de Sao Paulo or Jericoacoara, or at quasi hippie hangouts such as Sao Tome das Letras.
If you're coming from one of the Andean countries and have been chewing coca leaves, be especially careful to clean out your pack before arriving in Brazil . Sentences are stiff even for possession of coca leaves.
Because of the stiff penalties involved with possession or apparent possession, we advise you to stay away from it in any form.
