08/01/2023 – 21:48
The Public Security Commission of the Chamber of Deputies sent an official letter to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) asking it to remove the judgment on the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use from the agenda until a public hearing is held to address the impact of the matter on public safety. The issue will be analyzed by the Court this Wednesday, 2.
“It is with concern that we are following this judgment, which notably has the power to further increase drug consumption and trafficking”, justified the president of the collegiate, Ubiratan Sanderson (PL-RS), author of the request, which had the contribution by Osmar Terra (MDB-RS).
The deputies intend to hear at the hearing the director of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) Daniel Meirelles Fernandes Pereira, Director of the Fifth Directorate and a representative of the National Secretariat of Policies on Drugs and Asset Management of the Ministry of Justice.
Earlier, the deputy himself said that the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use would be “disastrous”. “The greater the consumption of drugs, the greater the trafficking, which is directly related to more than 60% of the homicides that take place in Brazil,” he said.
Decriminalization and legalization are different movements. Decriminalizing a conduct means removing it from the list of crimes provided for in Brazilian law. Legalizing requires that there are specific laws regulating how the act should or can be practiced.
Ministers Luís Roberto Barroso, Edson Fachin and Gilmar Mendes have already voted in favor of some type of absolution of penalties for possession of narcotics.
The Court has been judging the issue since 2015, when the Public Defender’s Office of São Paulo contested the punishment specifically provided for those who “acquire, store, have in storage, transport or bring with them, for personal consumption, drugs without authorization or in disagreement with legal determination” .
As shown the Estadão, if the limit proposed by Barroso is the “ruler” adopted, 31% of drug trafficking cases in which marijuana was seized could in theory be reclassified as personal possession in the country, according to a study by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) . At the same time, 27% of those convicted in the same terms could have their judgments revised for being within the parameter.
As part of the effort to react to the STF judgment, the commission rescued a 2009 bill that increases the penalty for drug users to two to four years in prison. The project was approved and should be sent to the Constitution and Justice Commission of the Chamber.
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