Brazil to bring back humanized approach to drug abuse

Drug abuse prevention in Brazil will become humanized through a more socially oriented approach. The issue will be addressed as a health problem, thus departing from harsh repressive measures proven to be inefficient.

The topic was raised during the National Week on Drug Policy, under the theme Drug Policy: A Focus on People. The event was promoted by the National Secretariat for Drug Policies of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.

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The gathering brought together a number of experts in Brasília. Marta Machado, head of the secretariat, said the idea behind the initiative was to discuss prevention with “people-oriented policies” to ensure access to services and rights for people dealing with substance abuse and as well as for their family members and communities.

“We’re talking about a drug policy that deals with problematic substance use as a social and human development issue, a human rights issue, and a racial and gender equity issue,” she affirmed.

People’s needs, she argued, must be addressed in an integrated manner, respecting their autonomy and granting access to accurate information, health and social protection services, rights, as well as social and racial justice.

“Preventing drug use and involvement in trafficking should include more access to housing, employment, and income, less discrimination and more rights, less racism and more racial justice, less prejudice and more science,” she noted.

Methodologies

Similar initiatives, Secretary Machado pointed out, were implemented in 2013 under former President Dilma Rousseff in the form of “prevention programs with internationally validated methodologies adapted for Brazil, including further improvement through monitoring.”

“The secretariat fostered this movement, which sadly was brought to a halt,” she recounted, while announcing the return of prevention measures under the “robust” National Prevention System, with an action plan to be implemented first in 163 cities.

These municipalities account for half of the homicides reported across the country. “Our goal is to disseminate this throughout the country [later on],” she added.

Among the measures planned are the dissemination of accurate information and training for professionals working in prevention.

“Our efforts are based on the creation of a network of researchers, managers, and specialists, with a view to exchanging information and monitoring prevention policies,” she stated.

The system should also feature an online platform expected to serve as a database for managers and educators seeking relevant materials.

United Nations

Representing the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Elena Abbati said that only one in five people with a disorder associated with drug use receives treatment, as per recent UN reports. “The barriers to accessing treatment are manifold,” she said.

Among the problems observed, she stressed, is the fact that people who use drugs have to deal with stigma and discrimination, which can further undermine their physical and mental health.

“That’s why this year’s UNODC campaign emphasizes the importance of putting people first,” she added, also advocating “evidence-based practices in a culture of respect and empathy.”

Secretary Machado argued that a new direction should be given to state resources, targeting the “strongest and highest-ranking links” in the drug trafficking chain, rather than repressing the people.

“We’re looking at a landscape of institutional violence brought about by years of encouragement to harsh repression, and that’s a highly inefficient model that has also threatened the rights of people living in peripheral areas affected by drug trafficking,” she declared.

“We must therefore place the focus on the people, so that the brute force of the state no longer harms the innocent—many of them children. The majority, made up of black people living on the outskirts of large urban areas, are the ones struggling under the side effects of this war,” she said.