Talk:Brazil

Talk

Discussion for: Brazil • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Brazil is about cannabis in Brazil. It covers where cannabis is grown (the São Francisco valley of Pernambuco and the north and north-east); the names of the plant; the accounts of its arrival; the Crown's hemp factory in the far south; the municipal ban of 1830 and the federal laws from 1932 to 2006; the Supreme Federal Court's ruling of 2024 and the medical regulations; religious and social use as the sources describe it; the supply from Paraguay; enforcement; and the herbarium sheets collected in the country. The longer history named in the History hatnote is planned as a separate article. The tables of growing regions, growing areas, accessions and news fill from pages that name Brazil as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

Statutes. Decree No. 20.930 of 1932 is cited from the Chamber of Deputies' legislation database (its page gives the original publication as the Diário Oficial da União of 16 January 1932, p. 978). Decree-Law No. 891 of 1938, Law No. 6.368 of 1976 and Law No. 11.343 of 2006 are cited from the Presidency's legislation site. Ordinance No. 344 of 1998 is cited from the Ministry of Health's republication of 1998; its lists have been amended many times since.
The ruling of 2024 is known from the Supreme Federal Court's own news item and its summary for the public ("informação à sociedade"), both of 26 June 2024.
ANVISA. Resolutions RDC 17/2015 and RDC 327/2019 are cited from the Ministry of Health's legislation library. The judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of November 2024 and the resolutions of 2026 are cited from ANVISA's news items.
The ban of 1830. The text of the Rio de Janeiro council's order is cited from the transcription in Barros and Peres (2011), which follows Luiz Mott (1986), and from the English translation printed by Farias in the UN Bulletin on Narcotics (1955).
Histories. Carlini (2006), Brandão (2014), Menz (2005), Rosa (2024), Rosa and Fraga (2024), Fraga and Iulianelli (2011) and Barros and Peres (2011) are open access. Hutchinson (1975) and Rubim de Pinho (1975) are cited from the printed volume. Duvall (2019) is cited from the chapter the publisher makes freely available, with its notes. Souza (2015) is cited only for the statement already cited on Diamba.
Quoted primaries. Dória (1915), Pio Corrêa (1926), Lucena (1934), Pereira (1958), Wagley and Galvão (1949) and Sarney's account of 1953 are cited as Brandão, Hutchinson and Duvall report them.
Enforcement and trade. The United States intelligence reports for 1985–86, 1987 and 1989 are cited from the scans of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Seizure and eradication figures are from UNODC (World Drug Reports 2012, 2018 and the 2023 annexes; the Brazil profile of 2003; Cocaine Insights 4 of 2022), the US State Department report of 2025 and Federal Police figures as printed in the Diario de Pernambuco and by Agência Brasil. Patriota and colleagues (2021) are cited from the abstract and the full text.
Forensic studies (Shibuya et al. 2006; Mariotti et al. 2016; Fett et al. 2019 and 2020; Bettim et al. 2026) are cited from their abstracts.
Herbarium sheets are known from their GBIF occurrence data (207 records for Brazil, 193 of them preserved specimens) and the species entry of the Flora e Funga do Brasil.

Where the sources differ

How cannabis reached Brazil. Carlini (2006) states that enslaved Africans brought it. Hutchinson (1975) reports a consensus for the early 16th century and repeats the story of seed carried in cloth dolls, which he credits to Rosado (1958) quoting Pio Corrêa. Duvall (2019) traces that chain, reads Pio Corrêa's boneca as a small cloth bundle, calls the date of 1549 meaningless for cannabis and finds no evidence of the plant in western Africa before the 1700s. Brandão (2014) records the African hypothesis as the majority view of the 20th century and mentions Jesuit and Crown cultivation of hemp. Rubim de Pinho (1975) dates the arrival to "the first half of the fifteenth century", which sits oddly beside the charter of 1549 he also cites; his date is not used.
The origin of the word maconha. The Michaelis and Priberam dictionaries derive it from Kimbundu (makaña, makanha). Carlini and Brandão note that it is an anagram of cânhamo. Duvall treats maconha as a word group separate from diamba, riamba and liamba. Rubim de Pinho places nearly all the traditional names in "the Angolan language" without a source. No source derives maconha from diamba; the article does not give an etymology.
The penalty of 1830. Barros and Peres's transcription gives three days in jail (cadeia) for slaves and other users and a fine of 20$000 for the seller. Farias's English translation gives the "penalty of chains" for up to three days. Hutchinson places the order in "the Colonial Period", though Brazil had been independent since 1822.
The labour sent to the hemp factory. Menz (2005) gives 21 enslaved couples from the Royal Estate of Santa Cruz; Rosa (2024) gives 20. The article gives no number.
Where Brazil's cannabis comes from. Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, citing Fraga 2010): about 60 per cent imported. Fett and colleagues (2019): the north and north-east supplied by national production, the rest of the country by Paraguay; (2020): the Polígono supplies 30 per cent of the national market. Ribeiro and colleagues (2020), citing the Federal Police: supply mainly from Paraguay and the Polígono. UNODC (2022): most cannabis herb in Brazil originates in Paraguay. None of the shares states the year it refers to.
Dória's paper. Brandão dates it to the Second Pan-American Scientific Congress of 1915, reprinted in the collection of 1958; a UN bibliography of 1951 lists an edition of the Imprensa Oficial, Bahia, 1936.
Carlini's year. Brandão cites "Carlini, 2005" for the ban of 1830; the article meant is Carlini (2006), Jornal Brasileiro de Psiquiatria 55(4).
The publication of Decree No. 20.930. The Chamber of Deputies gives 16 January 1932; a secondary summary gave 14 January.
Fraga's Especiaria article on violence and cultivation in the Polígono is dated 2006 in one index and 2007 in Rosa and Fraga's references; it was not cited.

Other reports

The "80 per cent from Paraguay, 20 per cent domestic" figure often attributed to UNODC and the International Narcotics Control Board: their reports do not give it. UNODC's Cocaine Insights 4 (2022) gives one interviewee's estimate that about 80 per cent of Paraguayan cannabis is grown for the Brazilian market; an interview, not a measurement.
The anecdote of Queen Carlota Joaquina and a "diamba do amazonas" infusion, told by Hutchinson after Assis Cintra (1930 or 1934): an anecdote of unverified origin.
Gilberto Freyre's image of enslaved workers smoking between the rows of sugar cane: Duvall argues that planters would not have tolerated a drug crop beside the cash crop. Only the dispute over Freyre's hypothesis is reported.
The viceroy's letter of 4 August 1785 sending hemp seed to Santos: Carlini and Brandão quote it from two different editions of Fonseca, with differing words and the same ellipses.
Burton (1869) on cannabis as a "poison" among slaves: known only through Duvall.
Farias's statement that Brazilian maconha is identical with a "native" Mexican and Central American plant, and the names Rosa Maria and D. Juanita in Hutchinson's list of "local Brazilian terms": these are Mexican names.
The UNODC annex for 2021 (64.5 hectares and 614 tons in columns whose headings do not align): not interpreted.
Insect fragments in pressed cannabis (Macedo et al. 2013): the study places two seizures from central Brazil in a region spanning Mato Grosso, Paraguay and Argentina; a single forensic case.
The Wikipedia article on cannabis in Brazil: a tertiary source; facts it shares with the sources above are cited to those sources.

Open questions

Brazil at Geneva in 1924–25. The delegate's name, Pernambuco Filho, comes from Brandão citing Lucena.
Local populations and germplasm. The genetic studies cited sampled seizures, not old local populations or landraces. GRIN-Global lists no cannabis accession from Brazil. Whether Flora brasiliensis treats Cannabis is open.
The Polígono. Its municipalities differ between sources; the article gives the list of the Federal Police's georeferenced data (2010–2018). Production in Maranhão and Pará is known only from eradication reports.
Industrial hemp. The cited sources give no area figure for hemp grown under the court ruling of 2024 or the resolutions of 2026.