Pubdate: Fri, 04 Jan 2002
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2002 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact:  http://www.csmonitor.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/83
Forum: http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/vox/p-vox.html
Fax: (617) 450-2031
Author: Andrew Downie
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

BRAZIL'S DRUG USERS WILL GET HELP, INSTEAD OF JAIL

Sweeping New Laws Are Based On The View That Drug Users Need 
Treatment, Not Criminal Punishment.

RIO DE JANEIRO - On the continent that produces most of the world's 
cocaine and much of its heroin and marijuana, its largest country is 
softening punishment on recreational drug users.

The Brazilian Congress adopted landmark legislation that substitutes 
alternative punishments such as community service and rehabilitation 
for custodial sentences. The government will now treat recreational 
drug users not as criminals, but as people in need of medical and 
psychological help.

"Smoking marijuana is not a crime," says Paulo Roberto Uchoa, the 
general who heads Brazil's National Antidrug Secretariat. "A drug 
user is ... someone who needs counseling and information. The ones 
who traffic drugs are the criminals."

The new legislation makes Brazil the first major South American 
country to introduce more lenient legislation concerning drugs and 
follows the trend in Europe where a host of nations including 
Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Britain, have softened 
their stances toward minor drug possession.

Although regional experts say Brazil's decision is unlikely to spur 
similar strategies in other Latin American nations - partly because 
the United States is so opposed to such measures - Brazilian 
officials are celebrating what they say is a humane and common-sense 
response to a problem that refuses to go away.

"A drug user is not a case for the police, he's a drug addict," says 
Elias Murad, the Congressman who sponsored the bill. "He's more of a 
medical and social problem than a police problem, and that's the way 
thinking is going these days, not just here in Brazil but the world 
over. We believe that you can't send someone who is ill to jail."

With 170 million people and a large middle class, there is a steady 
market for drugs in Brazil. Although heroin use is almost unheard of, 
the use of cocaine is not uncommon in big cities, and the popularity 
of crack cocaine is growing in poor urban areas.

Marijuana is so popular that the drug is smoked openly on the 
country's beaches and in bars and discos. One recently released study 
by the World Health Organization showed that in Brazil's biggest 
city, Sao Paulo, 80 percent of youngsters between the ages of 16 and 
24 say they know of someone who has used the drug.

Until now, anyone caught with small quantities of drugs could be 
sentenced to between six months and two years in prison.

Under Mr. Murad's law, first-time offenders not guilty of trafficking 
drugs face one or more punishments that include obligatory 
rehabilitation programs, community service, fines, or loss of their 
driving license.

The law makes no distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs, and 
judges will decide on sentences, Murad says.

Getting the law through Congress was a long struggle for Murad, a 
doctor who runs more than 50 drug prevention and rehabilitation 
centers in his home state of Minas Gerais.

He introduced the bill in 1991, but it was not approved by the lower 
house until 1996. It took another five years before the Senate, after 
making minor alterations, ratified the legislation and passed it back 
to the lower house, where it was approved last week.

Drug experts hope those in charge of Brazil's health, legal, and 
prison systems will act more quickly than the politicians. The new 
laws will heavily impact each of those branches, says Ricardo de 
Oliveira Silva, a prosecutor who has campaigned for alternative 
sentences.

Perhaps the greatest immediate effects will be felt in Brazil's 
prisons. Mr. Silva says the legislation could mean judges send 
one-third fewer people to jail, thus helping to reduce overcrowding 
in the country's already packed jails. At least three Brazilian 
states have successfully adopted similar programs already, and both 
state and federal officials admit that police in other states were 
using their discretion to caution small-time drug users and give them 
the option of treatment or trial.

Courts, too, will benefit because suspects who agree to undergo 
rehabilitation without first going to trial will have their arrests 
wiped from the book. As those found guilty will face rehabilitation 
anyway, prosecutors expect the overwhelming majority of suspects to 
accept the punishment without trial, thus saving valuable time and 
money.

But while the news will be welcomed by the people who run Brazil's 
prisons, it will be met with trepidation at the country's Health 
Ministry, where officials will have to quickly train professionals to 
deal with a massive increase in the number of people entering 
rehabilitation programs. If additional funding is not immediately 
forthcoming, the system's meagre resources could be strained, says 
Silva.

"We have been in touch with them to tell them to prepare. But my 
worry is that they won't be ready for the new reality," he says. 
"This is going to put a lot of pressure on the country's health 
system."

In the long term, however, the programs should be cost efficient, 
Silva says, because out-patient therapy is much cheaper than locking 
up offenders. In addition, the recidivism rate will be expected to 
fall as drug users are helped out of dependency. In the state of Rio 
Grande do Sul, where treatment replaced prison terms, the recidivism 
rate has been halved from 85 percent two years ago, says drug czar 
Uchoa.
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