Harm reduction as a social strategy

Set for the last week of October, the second meeting of the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy will center on the topic of urban violence and institutional corruption, two of the most damaging side effects of both the illegal drug trade and the “war on drugs” policy.

The drug policy debate has been given new life in Latin America over the past few months, thanks to the emergence of new actors. Until recently, challenges and criticism to drug prohibitionism came almost exclusively from youth or civil society organizations. But over the past five years this policy is being challenged for the first time by people with very different profiles, such as Brazil’s former present Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

One of the new unconventional sources of criticism is the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy, the CBDD, that was born out of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, presided by three ex presidents, Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso along with the former president of Colômbia, César Gaviria Trujillo and the former president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo.

The Brazilian commission is markedly heterogeneous. Among its members are two ministers of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, the present of a media conglomerate, the head of a theology university, a colonel of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police force, and the president of an influential banking group, to single out a few of the 27 other prominent figures of the political, scientific, cultural and economic circles in Brazil.

Having held its first meeting in August, the Commission was openly critical of the current drug policy in Brazil and in the world as mandated by the international conventions supported by the United Nations.

As stated in the report of the CBDD’s first meeting, its members agree to look for an alternative for the so-called war on drugs. “Considering the fact that prohibitionism failed to produce the desired results, we should look to other drug policy models to contain the problem. Harm reduction seems to be the best expression to summarize this way of thinking, along with its corresponding strategies,” says an excerpt of the document.

Priority

The commission highlighted that the term “harm reduction” to be applied in Brazil must go further than similar experiences in other countries, where the term is used to describe harm caused to individual users. “While in Europe, Australia or New Zealand harm reduction by and large refers to individual losses, in Latin America and Brazil, such losses also affect people collectively. Urban violence and the institutional corruption are associated to activities of the illegal drugs market and the policies that combat it. While harm reduction for individuals points us in the direction of health care and social services policies, the notion of collective harm demands policies that are more wide-ranging, that include public security and promote groups of strategic importance, such as children and the people who live in vulnerable neighborhoods,” reads the report.

Based on this premise, the Commission decided to focus its efforts on the issue of urban violence and organized crime, since they are the most important points when discussing the impact of drugs on groups versus individuals in Brazil. It is expected that next meeting of the Commission to be held in October will therefore center around urban violence, organized crime, public security and potential solutions. Various specialists and authorities in public security have been invited to present experiences from Colombia, Europe and the United States in the upcoming meeting.

The CBDD also created a Working Group on Drugs and Public Security to further develop the debate. According to public security specialist and Working Group secretary José Marcelo Zacchi, the goal of the group is to delve deeper into results generated by the current Brazilian drug policy, and to consider possible changes, from the point of view of criminal justice and public security professionals. “The WG on drugs and public security was created as an additional forum for the CBDD, as a way to foster thinking on more specific aspects, and to provide subsidies for the Commission on the impact of the use, market, and repression of illicit drugs in the dynamics of urban violence, once it is recognizably the aspect of greatest social impact of the drug problem in the case of Brazil.”

In the ambit of public security, it is particularly interesting to note the point of view of Military Police Colonel Jorge da Silva, former Chefe de Estado Maior, Head of the Rio de Janeiro State Military Police force, and also member of the Commission and the Working Group.

According to his blog, Colonel da Silva admitted that he has changed his view on the  drug policy in Brazil and the world. “When I was in the military police I used to think that drug users ought to be punished as rigorously as drug traffickers,” he said, adding, that the suppression of users, small drug sellers and drug traders are mere palliative measures for an issue that requires another type of solution.

“It is very hard for police officers with a career behind them to admit this, but it is undeniable that if we do not change the war on drugs paradigm, we will lose this war,” said the Colonel, his statement mirrors the content of discussions in the ambit of the CBDD.

The near future

As the labors the CBDD progress, its results will be divulged to the public, since one of the main goals of the CBDD is to promote the dissemination of high-quality information so as to engage society in the debate and raise the quality of drug policy discussions in the nation.

Although there is no preset path ahead of the CBDD, discussions during the first meeting show signs that it is likely that future procedures will lead to designing a bill to better fit the nation’s needs with respects to the drug issue, one that belongs to the sphere of public health, as well as public security. In this area PT party congressman Paulo Teixeira will play a pivotal role, he is one of the few congressmen to have specialized himself on drug policy, and took part in the so called “New Drug Law” bill approved in 2006.

It is also hoped that the CBDD will develop proposals in the area of public health, the importance of this issue is signaled by the appointment of Paulo Gadelha, president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, as president of the CBDD. As commented by Rubem César Fernandes, CBCC secretary, “The fact that Paulo Gadelha was chosen is a clear indiciation that prevailing aspect for the new national drug policy ought to be health.” 

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi

Read Further:

Blog of Colonel Jorge da Silva (In Portuguese)

The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy  (Also known as the Latin American Initiative on Drugs and Democracy)

Fundação Oswaldo Cruz