Severe humanitarian issues are unleashed on Brazil. Serious floods in the State of Rio Grande do Sul hit the south of the country due to intense rains that have been going on for two weeks. That have already left 144 dead, more than 800 injured and at least two million homeless. While rescuers have rescued more than 76,000 people in Rio Grande do Sul in the past two weeks, at least 127 are still missing.
While this terrible natural disaster rages unstoppably, the world continues to spin. And the political agendas are there. In one of the most sensitive issues, drug policy, the panorama is serving as a context for adopting regressive decisions and not for creative reflection.
In recent days the scene has been in Brazil and in a discussion/decision adopted in the Senate. But it has gone somewhat unnoticed without the issue appearing on the front pages or becoming central to the public debate, focused on the effects of the ongoing humanitarian scourge.
Wrong policies: “war on drugs.”
A solid fact is confirmed in reality: the failure of the “war on drugs.” With the policies in force for decades, not only in Brazil but in most of the planet, it has not been possible to reduce, much less stop, the consumption of illicit drugs. Decades of “more of the same.” With results that leave no room for doubt: while drug consumption does not decrease, at the same time, those who pay the “breaks” have been – and continue to be – essentially the poor and women.
An excellent study published by WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America), for example, explains precisely how reality has not changed: the increase in the trade and consumption of illicit drugs. Within this regional framework, Brazil has already become the second largest consumer of cocaine and derivatives in the world. Preceded only by the United States. The so-called “basic pasta” and crack are sold wholesale and at very low prices in the so-called crackolands in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo.
Meanwhile, the incarceration of women in Latin America has increased dramatically in the last two decades and prisons – for men and women – are full of people linked to the illicit drug business. While Latin American prisons are a growing source of violence and tension, the famous war on drugs has a lot to do with it.
Drugs: the most common accusation
In most countries in the region, drug-related crimes not only remain quantitatively very high but are the main cause for the imprisonment of certain human groups, such as women. None of this high “social cost,” however, has been reflected in the decline in the trade or consumption of illicit drugs.
This fact alone should merit a critical and self-critical review of the path taken, but it seems more “comfortable” to continue, as if nothing had happened. To treat the issue of illicit drug consumption as a serious and delicate public health issue and not, as it is now, as an issue limited to criminal law, whose inefficiency has proven to be total.
Drug-related crimes, thus, constitute the most common accusation against imprisoned women in most Latin American countries. To this we must add a crucial “social” fact: the majority are women from the poverty or extreme poverty stratum.
Thus, impoverished women are the victims of the famous – and failed – “war on drugs” that is increasingly questioned. In Colombia, for example, about half of female inmates are in prison for minor drug offenses; More than 83% of this group is considered “poor.” The panorama is very similar in other South American countries.
Indeed, in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, that is the constant. Not the exception. Meanwhile, the trade and consumption of illicit drugs continues unstoppable given the nonexistence – or inefficiency – of public health policies on the subject.
Supreme Court: decriminalization of cannabis
Within an always complex context – as cannot but be the case in this immense country of more than 200 million inhabitants – the powerful – and solvent – Supreme Court of the country – “Supreme Federal Court” – has been courageously evaluating and courage, this complex issue. Starting by transparently addressing the discussion on the decriminalization of cannabis for personal use.
Good initiative.
Public health issue
The highest court in the country thus follows the policy already advanced in several countries: treating the consumption of consciousness-altering drugs not, simplistically, as a criminal or “criminal” matter, to overcrowd prisons. But as one of public health.
That demands, above all, preventive public policies. Information and monitoring. Like those that allowed, at the time, countries like Switzerland, for example, to reduce the spread of AIDS thanks to creative policies regarding the consumption of injecting drugs such as heroin. Notable progress occurred, for example, when Ruth Dreifuss, a solid critic of the militarization of the “war on drugs” and promoter of public policies with an approach linked to public health, served as president of the Swiss Confederation.
In Brazil, often shaken by impotence and bewilderment in the face of the strength of criminal organizations in cities like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, all kinds of responses have been attempted to combat the expansion of crime. Unsuccessfully. Many times going so far as to militarize the responses in the favelas, essentially affecting the poorest population. And little – or very little – to criminal organizations.
Going beyond the day to day, we must recognize the courage and bravery of the Supreme Federal Court. That high court has been proposing to get out of the circular routine and the inefficient traditional drug policy. Courageous the court to look in the grand perspective. And thus, get out of the recurring reiteration of policies that are as easy as they are inefficient, those usually prevalent around the anachronism of the “war on drugs.”
The Supreme Court of Brazil “got into the bull.” And he fundamentally addressed the discussion of a constitutional amendment aimed at deciding the decriminalization of the possession of marijuana for personal use.
A matter not only of public health but also of deep social impact in a country that seeks to leave behind any form of discrimination. According to a recent study, 65.7% of those prosecuted for drug trafficking in general are black. A whole issue in which the discrimination that still exists in Brazil is expressed and that the Supreme Court, apparently, does not view with indifference.
Public policies under discussion
Within this complex context, Brazil’s highest court has done well to discuss – and decide – on the issue. And, with this, about the need to design and promote adequate public information and prevention policies, in the specific field of health and the risks of consumption by minors.
But treating it like this, as a matter of public health. And that’s where it is now. Until the last vote in March, five of the 11 judges of the high court ruled in favor of decriminalizing it. Aiming to establish “objective parameters” of quantity to differentiate users from traffickers.
Thus, according to the information known about the debates in the Supreme Federal Court, the magistrates have proposed a range of between 25 and 60 grams, or six female plants, that produce THC, the psychoactive substance. The rationale: less than 9% (8.9%) of criminal proceedings for drug trafficking involve people arrested with 60 grams or less of marijuana, according to a 2023 study by the government Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea).
All this demands from the State, above all, creativity. Starting with reliable public information and the possibility of health care, instead of more prisons, preceded by very long and expensive criminal processes. Which, observing what happens in most Latin American countries, means that it is mostly the poorest and women who pay the price.
Senate: step towards regression
Reviewing the drug policies that are followed blindly because that is how it “has to” (the failed “war on drugs”) is becoming a growing subject of reflection in the world. This is what, with good judgment, the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil has advanced in discussing. Good news.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian Senate approved last month, in the opposite direction, a project that introduces the crime of drug possession into the Constitution. The Senate does it, as several critics have noted, regardless of the number. A decision that sounds – and is – demagogic. And it is seen, rightly, as a challenge to the creative debate in the Supreme Court, which evaluates decriminalization.
The project proposed by the conservative president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, modifies article 5 of the 1988 Constitution to “provide for the criminalization of the possession and carrying of unauthorized or illegal narcotics and related drugs.” The constitutional amendment was approved by 53 votes in favor and nine against after two sessions in the Upper House, with a conservative majority. Now it must go to debate in the Chamber of Deputies.
With reason – and precision – Human Rights Watch He described the Senate amendment as “a very serious setback.” Well, he points out that in addition to being ineffective, such a “war” “…has devastating consequences for human rights: it fuels the growth of criminal organizations that commit abuses and corrupt the rule of law, it promotes lethal police operations in communities, it fills “prisons with people who should not be behind bars.”
That’s what it is. Between good sense and realism, on the one hand, versus the demagogic illusion and the error/horror of continuing to promote a “war” as bloody as it is useless and unsuccessful.
On the agenda: several steps
Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes, rapporteur of the case under debate, argued that carrying drugs for personal use should no longer be a crime. Magistrates Luís Roberto Barroso and Edson Fachin, on the other hand, were clearly in favor of decriminalizing possession only for cannabis.
Meanwhile, on the streets, things seem to move too. The Senate’s prohibitionist – and regressive – thesis is considered a “legal absurdity” by the organizers of the next São Paulo Marijuana March, scheduled for June 17. Which has as a precedent the march carried out in 2022 that brought together nearly 80 thousand people in the capital of the State of São Paulo. We will have to see the impact of this mobilization in the weeks that follow.
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