Formulações de agenda acerca de Políticas Públicas Canábicas no Brasil

Abstract

Cannabis – the practice of consuming the cannabis sativa plant for its derivative and/or cultural purposes, food, smoke, or other ways – has been widely discussed and regulated in contemporary times. Although this habit is not recent, whether as a “recreational” or medicinal action, it was only in the last few decades that cannabis ceased to be an illicit act and began to be recognized as a demanding custom of public policies. In Brazil, this process is in the initial phase, of entry into the decision-making agenda of the state and regulatory agencies. Having as object of study the process of formulating public policies in the context of cannabis, the objective is to analyze the formulation of the cannabis public policy agenda in Brazil. In order to guide the journey towards the general objective, specifically, it was intended: A) To identify the bills and regulations on cannabis culture and/or cannabis culture in progress in Brazil; B) Examine the problems, solutions and active political forces; C) reflect on the ideological, evaluative and scientific aspects of the proposals in progress within the scope of the research. The theoretical framework constructed was guided by the attempt to assimilate the theories of John Kingdon (2014), specifically the model of multiple flows and the concept of policy image, by Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones (2006), from a critical-dialectical perspective. Since the construction of the public problem involves perception therefore, for reasons of image/reality of being, the understanding of the ontological determination of what would be an “ideological condition” was also deepened. With regard to the empirical field and methodological procedures, official documents were used - six bills - and such sources were observed through the problems, justifications and solutions presented, which were examined in the light of the Discourse Analysis of inspiration in the writings by Bakhtin / Voloshinov (2006). Three axes were used in conducting the analyses, namely the medicinal, the legalization and the decriminalization axis. The examination carried out indicated a trend in the formulation of the Brazilian cannabis agenda embodied in the resolution of problems related to the therapeutic and/or medicinal consumption of the plant. Issues related to recreational and/or ritual consumption are neglected. We found a trend aimed only at the medicinal axis, which, we know, does not encompass a proper formulation of the problem for a proper cannabis public policy agenda. Cannabis law projects in Brazil need to appreciate the legalizing and decriminalizing axes, so that an agenda is actually formulated that addresses the cannabis problem in a broad, reparatory, sustainable, economically viable, socially libertarian way.