Cannabis compassion

symbolic and political dimensions in the management of pain and suffering in Brazil

Authors

  • Frederico Policarpo Universidade Federal Fluminense. Pós-Graduação em Sociologia e Direito

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2596-3147.v1i1p41-52

Keywords:

Marijuana, Compassion, Therapeutics, Politics

Abstract

In this article, I intend to discuss an aspect of drug control that is secondary in public debates about prohibition. Just as UN conventions point out that drugs cause pain and suffering because of “drug addiction”, “chemical addiction”, generating illicit trade and “trafficking” violence, the same conventions admit that drugs also continue “indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering”. I will use ethnographic data that I have produced in the United States and Brazil to discuss the therapeutic use of marijuana for handling “pain relief and suffering.” Considering that medical and legal concepts are political constructs, I use the normative regulations on the therapeutic use of marijuana – the Brazilian and the North American – in order to glimpse the political and moral climate of the historical moment in which they are updated. I hope, therefore, to contribute to the elaboration of a “political pharmacopoeia” around marijuana, considering the normative texts as a way of observing how moral, biological, commercial, etc., bonds between human beings and the plant are established.

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Author Biography

  • Frederico Policarpo, Universidade Federal Fluminense. Pós-Graduação em Sociologia e Direito

    Professor adjunto do curso de Políticas Públicas e da Pós-graduação em Sociologia e Direito, na Universidade Federal Fluminense.

References

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Published

2019-03-28

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019)

Section

Articles

License

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How to Cite

Policarpo, F. (2019). Cannabis compassion: symbolic and political dimensions in the management of pain and suffering in Brazil. Revista Ingesta, 1(1), 41-52. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2596-3147.v1i1p41-52