Brazil's Supreme Court decriminalizes possession of marijuana for personal use

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil's Supreme Court voted Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for personal use, making the country one of the last Latin American countries to do so, as part of 'a measure that could reduce its massive prison population.

In final votes Tuesday, a majority of the 11-person court's justices voted in favor of decriminalization since deliberations began in 2015.

Judges have yet to determine the maximum amount of marijuana that would be considered for personal use and when the ruling will take effect. This should end on Wednesday.

All of the justices who voted in favor said decriminalization should be limited to possession of marijuana in amounts suitable for personal use. The sale of drugs will remain illegal.

In 2006, the Brazilian Congress passed a law to punish people arrested for possessing small amounts of drugs, including marijuana, with alternative punishments such as community service. Experts say the law is too vague and doesn't establish a specific amount to help law enforcement and judges distinguish between personal use and drug trafficking.

Police continued to arrest people carrying small amounts of drugs for trafficking, and Brazil's prison population continued to rise.

“The majority of pre-trial detainees and those convicted of drug trafficking in Brazil are first-time offenders, carrying with them small quantities of illicit substances, captured during routine police operations, unarmed and without evidence of any link with organized crime. said Ilona Szabó, president of the Igarapé Institute, a think tank focused on public safety.

Congress responded to the top court's ongoing deliberations by separately advancing a proposal to strengthen drug laws that would complicate the legal framework surrounding marijuana possession.

In April, the Senate approved a constitutional amendment criminalizing the possession of any amount of an illicit substance. The lower house's constitutional committee approved the proposal on June 12, and it will have to go through at least one more committee before moving to a floor vote.

If lawmakers pass such a measure, the legislation would take precedence over the highest 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 up to the Supreme Court to make a decision on the matter.

“There is an appropriate avenue to move this discussion forward and that is the legislative process,” he said. “This is something that obviously generates wide discussion and is an area of ​​concern for Congress.”

Last year, a Brazilian court allowed some patients to grow cannabis for medical purposes after the health regulator in 2019 approved guidelines for the sale of medicinal cannabis-derived products. But Brazil is one of the few Latin American countries that has not decriminalized the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal consumption.

The Supreme Court's decision has long been demanded by activists and lawyers in a country where the prison population has become the third largest in the world. Critics of the current law say users caught with even small amounts of drugs are routinely convicted of trafficking and locked up in overcrowded prisons, where they are forced to join prison gangs.

“Today, trafficking is the main driver of imprisonment in Brazil,” said Cristiano Maronna, director of JUSTA, a civil society group that focuses on the justice system.

Brazil ranks behind the United States and China among countries with the highest prison populations, according to World Prison Brief, a database that tracks such numbers.

Some 852,000 people were deprived of their liberty in Brazil in December 2023, according to official data. Among them, nearly 25% were arrested for drug possession or trafficking. Brazilian prisons are overcrowded and black citizens are disproportionately represented, making up more than two-thirds of the prison population.

A recent study by Insper, a Brazilian research and education institute, determined that black individuals found by police in possession of drugs were slightly more likely to be charged as traffickers than white people. The authors analyzed more than 3.5 million files from the Sao Paulo Public Security Secretariat from 2010 to 2020.

“A breakthrough in anti-drug policy in Brazil! It’s a question of public health, not security and incarceration,” left-wing MP Chico Alencar wrote on X after the ruling.

In contrast, Gustavo Scandelari, a specialist in the Brazilian penal code at the law firm Dotti Advogados, said he does not expect the decision to result in a significant change from the status quo, even after the highest court established a maximum quantity of marijuana for personal use. . Scandelari argued that the amount will remain one of the determining factors in determining whether authorities consider a person a dealer or a user, but not the only one.

Some Brazilians, like Alexandro Trindade, a 47-year-old Rio de Janeiro resident, have managed to express outrage at both the Supreme Court's decision to decriminalize marijuana and Congress's desire to keep it illegal.

“The Supreme Court is not the right place (for such a decision). This should be put to a plebiscite for the people to decide,” Trindade said. “The Supreme Court and Congress have been very opposed to the company on this issue.”

As in other countries in the region, such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, the medical use of cannabis in Brazil is permitted, although in a very restricted manner.

Uruguay has fully legalized the use of marijuana, and in some U.S. states, recreational use for adults is legal. In Colombia, possession has been decriminalized for a decade, but a law to regulate the recreational use of marijuana so it can be sold legally failed to pass the Senate in August. Colombians can transport small amounts of marijuana, but selling it for recreational purposes is not legal.

The same applies in Ecuador and Peru. The distribution and possession of cannabis remains illegal in Venezuela.

Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that it was unconstitutional to penalize an adult for using marijuana if it would not harm others. But the law has not been changed and users are still arrested, even if most cases are rejected by judges.

Uruguay became the first country to legalize recreational marijuana in 2013, although the measure was not implemented until 2017. The entire Uruguayan industry, from production to distribution , is under state control and registered users can purchase up to 40 grams of marijuana per month from pharmacies.

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Sá Pessoa reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press journalists Mauricio Savarese, Mário Lobão, Regina Garcia Cano and Manuel Rueda contributed to this report.

Diane Jeantet and Gabriela Sá Pessoa, Associated Press