Supreme Court of Brazil On Tuesday the United States voted to decriminalize marijuana possession for personal use, making it the last country in Latin America to do so, a move that could reduce the massive number of inmates in prisons.
With the final vote on Tuesday, a majority of judges on the 11-member court have voted in favor of decriminalization since deliberations began in 2015.
Brazil will decide whether businesses can grow cannabis, opening the way for legal cultivation
Judges still have to decide the maximum amount of marijuana that will be considered for personal use and when that decision will take effect. That is expected to be completed by Wednesday.
The Brazilian Supreme Court during a session regarding the conviction of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a corruption case, Brasilia, Brazil, April 4, 2018. The Supreme Court decriminalized possession of marijuana for personal use on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Perez)
All justices voted in favor, saying decriminalization should be limited to possessing marijuana in amounts appropriate for personal use. Selling the drug would remain illegal.
In 2006, Brazil’s Congress approved a law that sought to punish those caught carrying small amounts of drugs, including marijuana, with alternative punishments such as community service. Experts say the law was too vague and did not set a specific quantity to help law enforcement and judges distinguish between personal use and drug trafficking.
Police continued to arrest people carrying small amounts of drugs on charges of smuggling, and the number of prisoners in Brazil’s prisons continued to rise.
“The vast majority of pretrial detainees and people convicted of drug trafficking in Brazil are first-time offenders who carry small quantities of illicit substances, are caught in routine police operations, are unarmed and have no evidence of any links to organized crime,” said Ilona Szabo, president of the Igarapé Institute, a think tank focused on public security.
Congress has separately introduced a proposal in response to ongoing deliberations in the top court that would tighten drug laws, further complicating the legal situation around marijuana possession.
In April, the Senate approved a constitutional amendment making it a crime to possess any amount of illegal substances. The lower house’s constitutional committee approved the proposal on June 12, and it must pass at least one other committee before it can be voted on in the House.
If lawmakers pass such a measure, the law would take precedence over the Supreme Court’s decision but could still be challenged on constitutional grounds.
Speaking to reporters in the capital, Brasilia, Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco said it was not the Supreme Court’s job to rule on the case.
“There is an appropriate path to move this discussion forward, and that is through the legislative process,” he said. “This is something that clearly warrants a broad discussion and is a concern for Congress.”
Last year, a Brazilian court allowed some patients to grow cannabis for medical treatment after the health regulator approved guidelines for the sale of medicinal products made from cannabis in 2019. But Brazil is one of the few countries in Latin America that has not decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal consumption.
The Supreme Court’s decision had long been demanded by activists and legal scholars, as the number of prisoners in the country’s prisons has become the third largest in the world. Critics of the current law say that even those caught with small amounts of drugs are convicted of smuggling and locked up in overcrowded prisons, where they are forced to join prison gangs.
“Today, trafficking is the main cause of imprisonment in Brazil,” said Cristiano Marona, director of JUSTA, a civil society group focused on the justice system.
Brazil trails America and China The number is among the countries with the highest prison populations, according to the World Prison Brief, a database that tracks such figures.
According to official figures, approximately 852,000 individuals were deprived of liberty in Brazil as of December 2023. About 25% of these were arrested for possession or trafficking of drugs. Brazil’s prisons are overcrowded, and black citizens make up a disproportionately high proportion of the prison population, making up more than two-thirds of the prison population.
A recent study by Insper, a Brazilian research and education institute, found that black people caught with drugs by police were slightly more likely to be charged as traffickers than white people. The authors analyzed more than 3.5 million records from São Paulo’s Public Security Secretariat from 2010 to 2020.
“Progress in drug policy in Brazil! This is an issue of public health, not of security and imprisonment,” left-wing lawmaker Chico Alencar wrote on X after the verdict.
In contrast, Gustavo Scandelari, an expert on Brazil’s penal code at law firm Dotti Advogados, said he doesn’t think the ruling will bring any significant change from the status quo, even if the top court sets a maximum amount of marijuana for personal use. Scandelari argued that quantity will remain a determinant of whether authorities consider someone a dealer or user, but it is not the sole determinant.
Some Brazilians, like Alexandro Trindade, a 47-year-old Rio de Janeiro resident, are upset by the Supreme Court’s decriminalization of marijuana and the push from Congress to keep it illegal.
“The Supreme Court is not the right place (for such a decision). It should be put to a referendum so the people can decide,” Trinidad said. “Both the Supreme Court and Congress have been very much against society in this matter.”
Like other countries in the region, such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, the medicinal use of cannabis is allowed in Brazil, although in a highly restricted manner.
Uruguay has fully legalized marijuana use, and recreational use for adults is legal in some US states. in ColombiaMarijuana possession has been decriminalized for a decade, but a law to regulate recreational use of marijuana so it could be sold legally failed to pass the Senate in August. Colombians can possess small amounts of marijuana, but it is not legal to sell it for recreational purposes.
The same applies to Ecuador and Peru. In Venezuela, both distribution and possession are illegal.
Click here to get the Fox News app
Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that it was unconstitutional to punish an adult for using marijuana if it did not harm others. But the law has not been changed and users are still arrested, although most cases are dismissed by judges.
Uruguay became the first country to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2013, although it was only implemented in 2017. Uruguay’s entire industry, from production to distribution, is under state control and registered users can purchase up to 40 grams of marijuana per month through pharmacies.
