Research:2026-03-01/Journal article/colonial-legacies-of-drug-policing-in-brazil-the-cannabis-case-in-historical-perspective

ResearchJournal article1 March 2026

Colonial Legacies of Drug Policing in Brazil: The Cannabis Case in Historical Perspective

Priscila Villela, Paulo José dos Reis Pereira

The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs

Traces the formation of drug policing in Brazil, especially of cannabis, through a decolonial lens, drawing on more than sixty primary sources including laws, decrees, institutional reports, medical publications and archival records. The authors argue that the violent, arbitrary and racially selective features of Brazilian drug control are rooted in colonial forms of social control and are not explained merely by US influence or recent militarisation. They date its core features to the nineteenth century, with the criminalisation of cannabis in 1830, and see these domestic trajectories and international prohibition as reinforcing each other into the present.

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DOI10.1086/739588

CountryBrazil

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2026-03-01 2026-10-15 Colonial Legacies of Drug Policing in Brazil: The Cannabis Case in Historical Perspective Journal article History Priscila Villela, Paulo José dos Reis Pereira The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 2026 10.1086/739588 https://doi.org/10.1086/739588 Traces the formation of drug policing in Brazil, especially of cannabis, through a decolonial lens, drawing on more than sixty primary sources including laws, decrees, institutional reports, medical publications and archival records. The authors argue that the violent, arbitrary and racially selective features of Brazilian drug control are rooted in colonial forms of social control and are not explained merely by US influence or recent militarisation. They date its core features to the nineteenth century, with the criminalisation of cannabis in 1830, and see these domestic trajectories and international prohibition as reinforcing each other into the present. Brazil