From the Criminalization of Substances to the “War on Drugs” Policy: A Century of Prohibitionism in Brazil ; Desde la criminalización de sustancias hasta la política de “guerra contra las drogas”: un siglo de prohibicionismo en Brasil ; Da criminalização de substâncias à política de “guerra às drogas”: um século de proibicionismo no Brasil

In 1921, Decree 4,294 defined prohibitionism as the referential model of state response to drugs in Brazil. One century later, not only is the approach still enshrined in national legislation but also materialized in a complex institutional and bureaucratic network of governance and public policies. This paper examines the evolution of drug policies in Brazil over the past century, exploring how a web of normative, political, and institutional devices converged to entrench the hegemony of the prohibitionist approach in public responses to drugs. A systematic analysis of national and international legislation reveals that the prohibitionist enterprise was successful in Brazil due to two factors: i) as an ideational set, it was integrated into structuring discursive fields of Brazilian political culture, dialoguing with the stigmatization of marginalized populations and criminalization of their practices; and ii) as an ordering principle of public policy, it has demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability, incorporating elements of alternative models into its framework without compromising its fundamental structures. Political innovations implemented in Brazil since the 1990s (especially decriminalization and damage reduction models) have been able to neither shake the definition of drugs as a moral and criminal problem, nor prevent its instrumentalization as a policy of socio-spatial control of lower classes. ; En 1921, el Decreto 4.294 definió el prohibicionismo como modelo referencial de respuesta estatal a las drogas en Brasil. Un siglo después, este enfoque sigue presente en la legislación nacional y en una compleja red institucional y burocrática de gobernanza y políticas públicas. Este artículo examina la evolución de las políticas de drogas en Brasil durante el último siglo, explorando cómo un conjunto de dispositivos normativos, políticos e institucionales convergieron para afianzar la hegemonía del enfoque prohibicionista en las respuestas públicas a las drogas. Un análisis sistemático de la ...