Os vícios da lei: estudos sobre o controle do uso de drogas

Abstract

The existence of different legal guidelines regarding the consumption of drugs is a problem of serious social implications, since legal and radically diverse disciplines brings forth unjustifiable restrictions to constitutional rights and warranties for people who engage in similar behavior. The prohibition on the use of some drugs to the detriment of the absolute permission regarding the use of others promote state interference in the autonomy of individuals and represents a violation of the right to equality. The restriction of constitutional rights demands the justification of public policies before the constitutional system, particularly when the personal choice for the use of a drug brings implications in the sphere of criminal law. From the study of five paradigmatic cases (marijuana, tobacco, ethanol, ayahuasca, and Salvia divinorum), collect data allowed the examination of the social process of the formation of the policies on drug use. In all cases, social moral concepts are mobilized in order to generate legitimacy for the creation of the law, which often causes multiple irrationalities. In this work, we study the mechanism of the construction of such public consensus, and elaborate a criticism regarding the constitutionality of public policies concerning drug use, which keep no consistency neither in the purposes they express nor in the social phenomena they trigger, since their scope of operation is determined by strategic reasons and moral tensions that sometimes go beyond the objective explicitly proposed by legislation.