"O remédio vem de uma planta que eu não posso plantar": mobilização e articulação pelo uso terapêutico da maconha na Paraíba

Abstract

Conducted by those who are directly affected by the illegal condition of marihuana and its therapeutic use, this research seeks to situate and reflect on the collective articulations and on the paths found by the patient associations and their families who initially adopted marihuana therapy illegally and, realizing its effects, have been mobilizing a network of social actors, institutions and public and private organizations to position themselves on the topic in the state of Paraíba, for the realization of the right of access to health and social visibility for its claim. Until recently, even this therapeutic use was not allowed in Brazil and patients and their family members who brought illegally these medicines from abroad could be classified as drug dealers for the criminal act of transporting illegal substances. Based on international research and scientific evidence, the claim for therapeutic use of marihuana has emerged on the national scene over the past five years as a theme that goes beyond health issues alone, as it effectively involves a diversity of actors and institutions, many of them articulated with each other, which act on the possibilities or not of changing moral and legal conceptions that condemn the uses of the plant for considering it a drug. Following the claim of patients and families of patients whose marihuana treatments were successful, lawsuits requesting the importation of these medicines and their removal from the list of illicit substances classified by ANVISA have increased in recent years, as criminalized marihuana faces several obstacles that make it difficult to carry out research on the marihuana plant in the country and its importation becomes a long and expensive operation. The guiding thread of this research highlights the visibility, the public discussions and the social advances that the therapeutic use of marihuana has achieved. Therefore, I seek to: (a) contextualize the theme to indicate why the demand for the therapeutic use of marihuana - whether through derivatives, isolates and pharmacologically manipulated, or through whole extracts or even in nature plant - is still an undefined issue, situating sociopolitical, moral and economic issues involved in criminalization and lack of regulation; (b) present the forms of organization and performance of the Liga Canábica da Paraíba and ABRACE associations; (c) indicate the participation of government agencies and entities involved in the theme; and (d) analyze the articulations mobilized by the associations in search of a definition of this demand for health, considering the complexity of positions and interests involved. The final considerations are to point and provoke reflections from the research, rather than closing a definitive conclusion on the subject.