On a remote paradise island in the Pacific, two crises collide: meth use and HIV spread. SUVA, Fiji — The weekly drug handoffs to a shantytown settlement followed a predictable pattern. Each week, residents say, a black Dodge with dark-tinted windows stopped near a cluster of improvised shelters arrayed along muddy, rain-soaked lanes. A man emerged, exchanged meth for cash with a local contact, and drove away. The meth is then repackaged into tiny plastic bags, smaller than a child’s pinkie finger, and sold for roughly $22 per unit. This routine relayed through the neighborhood, underscoring a troubling routine that intertwines drug trafficking with health risks in a community already under strain.
