Brazil's Supreme court votes to decriminalize marijuana possession for personal use

Brazil's Supreme Court voted on Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for personal use, making it one of the last countries in Latin America to do so. This move has the potential to significantly reduce the country's massive prison population.
The justices must still determine the maximum quantity of marijuana that would be considered for personal use and when the ruling will take effect, which is expected to be finalized as early as Wednesday.
As per the news agency Associated Press (AP), The justices who voted in favor of decriminalization emphasized that it should be limited to possession of marijuana in amounts suitable for personal use, while selling drugs will remain illegal. In 2006, Brazil's Congress passed a law that aimed to punish individuals caught with small amounts of drugs, including marijuana, with alternative penalties such as community service.
However, the law was criticized for being too vague and failing to establish a specific quantity to help law enforcement and judges differentiate between personal use and drug trafficking.
"The majority of pre-trial detainees and those convicted of drug trafficking in Brazil are first-time offenders, who carried small amounts of illicit substance with them, caught in routine police operations, unarmed and with no evidence of any relationship with organized crime," said Ilona Szabó, president of Igarapé Institute, a think tank focusing on public security.
Congress has responded to the Supreme Court's ongoing deliberations by separately advancing a proposal to tighten drug legislation, which would complicate the legal picture surrounding marijuana possession. In April, the Senate approved a constitutional amendment criminalizing possession of any quantity of illicit substance, and the lower house's constitutional committee approved the proposal on June 12. If lawmakers pass such a measure, the legislation would take precedence over the top court's ruling but could still be challenged on constitutional grounds.
The Supreme Court's ruling has been long sought by activists and legal scholars in a country where the prison population has become the third largest in the world, behind the United States and China. Critics of current legislation argue that users caught with even small amounts of drugs are regularly convicted on trafficking charges and locked up in overcrowded jails, where they are forced to join prison gangs. "Today, trafficking is the main vector for imprisonment in Brazil," said Cristiano Maronna, director of JUSTA, a civil society group focusing on the justice system.
As of December 2023, approximately 852,000 individuals were deprived of liberty in Brazil, according to official data. Nearly 25 per cent of them were arrested for possession of drugs or trafficking. Brazilian jails are overcrowded, and Black citizens are disproportionately represented, accounting for more than two-thirds of the prison population. A recent study by Insper, a Brazilian research and education institute, found that Black individuals found by police with drugs were slightly more likely to be indicted as traffickers than white people.
While medicinal use of cannabis in Brazil is allowed, it is highly restricted. Uruguay has fully legalized the use of marijuana, and in some US states, recreational use for adults is legal. In other Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, possession has been decriminalized, but selling marijuana for recreational purposes remains illegal.
Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that it was unconstitutional to penalize an adult for consuming marijuana if it didn't harm others, but the law has not been changed, and users are still arrested, although most cases are thrown out by judges.