From the “Devil’s Leaf” to a Panacea? Biopolitics of Cannabis in Brazil

Abstract

In the last decades, cannabis regulation has advanced significantly, especially for medical use, while the recreational use of this drug has reached an increasing number of people around the world, including from higher social classes, in Western societies. In Brazil, some of these trends are also in place, while others are not. We argue that the current tensions and moves of the Cannabis policies in Brazil can be addressed by a historical-political perspective. To carry it out this analytical exercise, we use the Drug War Analysis (DWA) as a theoretical-methodological stance. We conclude that relatively slow pace of Brazil’s Cannabis policy reform is related to the friction among different interests that can be identified within societal-moral, political economic, medical-sanitary, and public security DWA’s levels of analysis. The analysis of the collusion of such forces is promising indication of how and how much it is politically, morally, and economically possible to expect deeper transformation in the Cannabis policy realm in contemporary Brazil.