NEITHER POLICE NOR DELUSIONS: THE MEDICINAL USE OF CANNABIS SATIVA

Abstract

Our research work seeks to problematize the use of Cannabis sativa as medicine. Over time and due to the geographical region, it received several names, such as: marijuana, maria joana, pito de pango, diamba among others. The names may be different; however, medical and legal discourses appropriated its manipulation, use and exposure, until we reached the first drug law in Brazil, in 1921, as recorded by Silva (2010). Not only was a war beginning in the field of discourse about the alteration of consciousness by psychoactive substances; a customs police process was initiated (Silva, 2010; 2015) that collaterally criminalized the substance and the individuals who used it in different circumstances. We conducted a literature review of articles published by physicians to learn about the current debate on the use of Cannabis sativa as a medicine. Our main source of research was the Report for Recommendations for Medicines and Technologies, released in February 2021, prepared by the National Commission for the Incorporation of Technologies (Conitec) in the SUS. This commission of the Ministry of Health brings together various sectors of the ministry, the municipal health secretariats and the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). Although the Report did not veto the use in children and adolescents refractory to other antiepileptic drugs, one of the indicators indicated a reduction in seizures in individuals with other syndromes. How would the working class pay for the medical consultation and medicine? To learn about the long history of drugs, we dialogue with Caneiro (2018), who discusses prohibitionism; Bensimon (2017), which shows the struggle of individuals, who patiently needed to use medicine, could not and were criminalized; Hari (2018), which presents a broader horizon of the war on drugs, the difficulty of conducting research, and the racial cut; Torcato (2014), which talks about North American efforts to contain alcohol consumption and the Temperance movement; Zaccone D'Elia Filho (2008), who shows the criminalization of drugs and the fight against drugs, especially in the lower classes. We conclude our work by presenting the harm reduction policy, based on the text by Alarcon (2012). As a result, our work informs the possibility of medicinal use of cannabidiol; however, not all individuals can use it in the same way, once again presenting the endemic social inequality in Brazil.