Why Cannabis Decriminalization in Brazil is Likely a Long Ways Away

The country of Brazil, the name of which conjures up visions of giant dense rainforests, never ending coastlines of sandy beaches, multitudes of beautiful partying people— and of course soccer— is one of the fastest growing countries economically. Since joining up with the nations of Russia, India, China and South Africa in order to form the BRICS mammoth banking system, one could say that it is poised to take a permanent position of power in the world. Yet, with all this growth and progress it is still seemingly far behind when it comes to the open-mindedness of its society, especially when it comes to major social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and cannabis decriminalization. 

In fact, in a recent poll conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics, the country was found to be extremely conservative on these issues. However, there are quite a few sociologists within the borders of the world’s 7th largest economic state that dare to say that Brazilians are more than close-minded. Some sociologists would argue a large portion of the country lives by a double standard where publicly, people say one thing, but in their private lives, do much different.   The poll finds that 77% of the populace is against legalizing abortion, 53% are against gay marriage, and a whopping 74% are against decriminalization. 

Many sociologists have rebutted this statistical claim based on the fact that the numbers of people, who in real life have had an abortion, engaged in sexual relations with someone of the same sex, and in particular smoked cannabis, do not coincide with the numbers in the poll. However, it isn’t that the poll itself is fixed, but that it is based on the ‘do but don’t tell’ attitude of the Brazilian people themselves. They reference how at least one woman dies every day from an illegal abortion, and how the underground abortion clinics are running at full capacity, giving evidence to the fact that at least 1 out of every 4 women in Brazil has had an abortion.  

When it comes to cannabis usage, at least 8 million Brazilians— 7% of the population— have smoked cannabis at some point and about 3% of the total populace are regular smokers. Obviously these numbers are not as high as in places like Canada, New Zealand, the US and UK, but the fact that so many people are against its decriminalization— unlike the comparative figure in other countries such as the above mentioned ones— shows Brazilians are not just holding out on being open-minded when it comes to cannabis, but intentionally pushing against it. 

Further evidence of their rather old school double standard of things couldn’t be better represented than by what comes out of the mouths of the country’s politicians. The topics of gay marriage, abortion, and cannabis are completely unheard of, and even the more progressive parties have had to keep their mouths shut and opinions to themselves in order to get voter’s approval.  The Socialism and Freedom Party and the Green Parties are the only ones running on the issues of legalization, abortion and cannabis. However, they hold an embarrassing 1% of the vote.

All this goes to show that though a country can be progressive economically—and though it undoubtedly engages in what we can call progressive lifestyles— there might be something to say about the society’s seemingly guilty conscious on the progressive topics.