Entre a droga e o remédio: uma análise do debate sobre a regulamentação da maconha no Brasil

Abstract

This work analyzed the discursive conflict between the participant subjects in the public debate on the regulation of marijuana in Brazil, in order to understand how these subjects employ medical-scientific and juridical-legal arguments to support propositions based on moral-values conceptions. In this sense, in order to analyze this conflict, it were observed six public hearings promoted by the Federal Senate of Brazil in 2014, which discussed the proposal to regulate the use of marijuana in Brazil. It was considered, initially, that the clash observed at these hearings was between groups of 'moral entrepreneurs', who defended opposing and favorable positions on the regulation. More than this, at some points the discussion develops in such a way that the conflict is between what is 'true' and what is 'false' in this debate. Thereby, the speeches of the 'experts' invited to these hearings were fundamental to ground the argument of the conflicting entrepreneurs to establish the 'correct' position in this debate. That being said, and since juridical-legal and medical-scientific discourses are central to this discussion, the aim of this work is to understand how the 'moral entrepreneurs' involved in this debate employ medical-scientific and juridical-legal ‗discourses‘ to support their propositions. In the attempt to answer this question, a discussion was made on Howard Becker's 'Interactionist theory of deviance' to understand the importance of the moral entrepreneurs actuations in establishing social rules. In addition, some 'methodological tools' pointed out by Michel Foucault in his 'archaeogenealogical' proposal were retrieved in order to understand how the emergence of the current conflict was possible and how the 'regimes of truth' and 'practices regimes' on marijuana use in Brazil have been modified throughout history.