Less moralism, more rationalism

INTERVIEW / Jorge da Silva

Following the police and military operation in Comlexo de Alemão, a large favela complex ruled by narcotraffickers for the past 20 years, several voices have emerged in favor of drug legalization as a solution to the violence generated by narcotrafficking and efforts to combat it. Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Governor Sérgio Cabral, and writer João Ubaldo Ribeiro are among the well-respected figures who have spoken out on the issue.

However, one of the most longstanding supporters of drug legalization is a former chief of Rio de Janeiro's Military Police and current university professor Jorge da Silva. As a police officer, he spent much of his time catching small-time marijuana dealers, and felt as though he was doing his duty as a police officer. He arrived at the point, however, in which it began to seem like the more drugs and weapons seized and the more people sent to prison, the more drugs and weapons were in circulation and the more criminals were on the streets.

This planted the first seed of doubt: "Am I doing the right thing?" he asked himself. Today the word "maconheiro" (pothead) is no longer part of his vocabulary, as, he says he no longer has the moral supremacy or prejudice that his previous work required. Today, he distinguishes between drug users, small-time dealers and armed narcotraffickers and says this differentiation is key for a more efficient drug policy in Brazil.

Thanks to his experience in the field, today, Col. da Silva is certain that repressive policies to control drug use is not only inefficient, but it is also the cause of the serious public security problems in countries like Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.

Col. da Silva, the coordinator of Public Security, Police and Human Rights Studies at the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and member of the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy spoke with Comunidade Segura about why he did a 180 on his position toward drug policy and elaborates on some of the alternative policies he proposed in his article: "Drogas: alternativas à guerra".

What changed your mind about drug policy and punishment?

I was in the police for 33 years, and during that time, the problem only grew worse. The more drugs we seized and the more people we put in jail, the worse things became: more deaths, more drugs. The more drugs and weapons we managed to capture, the more were in circulation.

Did your opinion change while you were still in the police?

Yes, but I wasn't able to express my opinions within the institution. What's more, there was the element of race. I was black and thought that Brazil was a racist country and that the police reflected this in their repressive action, but I couldn't say so. I was only able to touch on the theme when I was a colonel, and, of course, now that I've been out of the police for 14 years, I feel much more comfortable talking about this.

What was your view on drugs and what formed your convictions?

When I was an adolescent, in early 1950s, there was an image of the "pothead", a negative figure. Family values were obsessed with making children afraid of "potheads", equating them with bad people, vagabonds, or violent criminals. When I joined the police, in the 1960s, drugs were considered an abomination, something evil because President Nixon [former president Richard Nixon of the United States] said they were. So, the police felt as thought they were part of a moral brigade; the police not only carried out the law, but also became the moral police.

Do you believe this moral superiority can be seen in institutions?

This idea still exists in law enforcement. We see a lot of police, prosecutors and judges who go beyond their duty and who are the most fervently prohibitionist and I believe this is part of the problem. We should have a more rational anti-drug policy and make sure law enforcement limits its role to making sure the law is followed.

How does this "moral authority" view drug users?

The consequence of all of this is the tendency to concentrate punishment against users and not the traffickers. This is why we need to create awareness among police officers, judges, prosecutors, and other public functionaries that users are not the criminals.

But it's understandably difficult to see a drug user as legitimate and the seller of this substance part of illegality?

Yes. It's difficult to accept the difference; there are a lot of dogmas in the debate. I haven't figured out the logic of allowing the use and prohibiting the sale. It's more a question of controlling the use and sale.

What steps do you suggest in the meantime while drugs continue to be illegal?

I think it's a start to distinguish between users and traffickers. We should make another distinction as well: between small-time dealers and armed traffickers. Is a young kid from the favela, who is poor and has few opportunities and who alerts the traffickers when the police are coming a trafficker? He is, under current legislation, just as a kid who brings a few joints from the favela into the formal city is. But are they the same as someone who uses a rifle to threaten others or to shoot at the police? We need to clarify the differences between these levels of crime. We need to get public support for a change in the law on the severity of crime, but it's difficult when you have a society in which being a drug user is considered worse than being a trafficker.

How should the law distinguish between the user and seller?

Currently, the law says a person is a user when (s)he is carrying a small amount of drugs and is a seller when (s)he is carrying a larger amount. Except the law "forgot" to explain what constitutes a small amount and what constitutes a large amount. It's the police—and not the judge—who has to make a subjective evaluation: is the subject a seller or consumer? The law allows this evaluation to be based on the person's appearance (skin color, neighborhood, economic status). In other words, the law is discriminatory and must be changed in order to establish, with absolute clarity, the difference between a consumer and a dealer. Obviously, if he/she's a criminal like the person who killed Tim Lopes (a journalist who was cruelly tortured and killed by narcotraffickers in Rio de Janeiro), he has to be imprisoned.

Current laws don't differentiate between small-time dealers and narcotraffickers?

No, there's no difference and there needs to be. A 15-year-old boy who sells small amounts of drugs on the street is not the same as an armed trafficker, or the leader of a faction who orders the hands to be cut of his rivals. There needs to be some differentiation in the crimes.

In your opinion, how should the state deal with drug users?

The state should make sure that programs to reduce the negative effects of drug use can rely on the support of the public and civil society. It should prioritize preventative policies in different governmental departments, like health, education and the environment.

As long as prohibitionist policies are in place will suppression of drugs continue to play an important role?

Combating drug dealing should take a back seat to intelligence activities that focus primarily on big narcotraffickers and on sources of supply, contraband arms and ammunition and on money laundering.

Did the recent operation in Complexo de Alemão follow that logic?

The government had no other option. When the traffickers committed those acts of terrorism to frighten the government and induce panic in society, there was no other alternative to what they did. But it was a question of emergency. My question is: If the traffickers hadn't set the cars and buses on fire, if they hadn't committed acts of terrorism, would there have been such mobilization among society, the armed forces, and the police? Now, the state says after the police invasion it's going to do what it should have done 100 years ago: a "social invasion". They say they're going to bring schools, sanitation, health care, infrastructure, and job creation. Of course, I think this is great, but we must not forget that these people are there because they were pushed there by the state. It wasn't an accident. The state abandoned these areas and intentionally created this situation. But, of course, it's necessary to invest federal, state, municipal, and international resources in transforming these communities.

What gains have the Complexo do Alemão invasion brought to the rest of Rio de Janeiro?

The police and military officers are proud, having risked their lives together. We've never seen this integration and cooperation before and it was important. In my experience both in and out of the police, I've never seen all the institutions working together so well; we have to take advantage of this moment.

But there are a lot of public concerns over police corruption...

This is a minority [of the police]. The majority has nothing to do with this it and it's good that the public saw this during the operation. Most police officers should be valued.

Translated by Danielle Renwick

Further information:

Drogas: alternativas à guerra (English version)