Talk:Polígono da Maconha

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Discussion for: Polígono da Maconha • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Polígono da Maconha is a Growing Region: a named cultivation region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the 13 municipalities of the Pernambuco sertão in which the Federal Police's georeferenced eradication records of November 2010 to June 2018 fall, with their islands in the São Francisco. The Bahia bank of the river is not part of it. Orocó, Cabrobó, Belém do São Francisco, Santa Maria da Boa Vista and Floresta are to be its growing areas.

Data verification

Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the boundary, the municipalities the region takes in, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

The name Polígono da Maconha is used by the Federal Police (Patriota, Sá and Sato 2021, who worked from its data), by researchers (Fraga and Iulianelli 2011, p. 20; Rosa and Fraga 2024, p. 240; Rosa and Fraga 2023, p. 190; Fraga and Silva 2017, p. 138) and by the press (Agência Pública, 5 October 2017). The article gives it as the name these sources use. It is not an administrative unit.
Every source read places cultivation on the São Francisco in the sertão of Pernambuco, and several name the same municipalities:
- Patriota, Sá and Sato (2021): the Federal Police's 2,227 georeferenced records of fields destroyed from November 2010 to June 2018 fall in 13 Pernambuco municipalities (pp. 7 and 11, Table 1 on p. 9); 72.74 per cent were on river islands.
- Rosa and Fraga (2024): cultivation constant in Cabrobó, Belém do São Francisco, Serra Talhada and Floresta from the mid-1970s (p. 240), and seven cases at the Belém do São Francisco court in 1982–1989.
- Rosa and Fraga (2023): the reports in the Diario de Pernambuco for 1979–1981 centre on Floresta, Belém do São Francisco, Betânia, Serra Talhada and Cabrobó (pp. 193–194).
- Fraga and Silva (2017): fieldwork in Petrolina, Orocó, Cabrobó and Belém do São Francisco (Pernambuco) and Juazeiro and Curaçá (Bahia); the move to the islands "principalmente nos municípios pernambucanos de Orocó e Cabrobó" (p. 146).
- Federal Police operations reported by the Diario de Pernambuco in December 2020, May 2024, May 2025, July 2025 and October 2025 name Orocó, Cabrobó, Belém do São Francisco, Santa Maria da Boa Vista, Floresta, Carnaubeira da Penha, Betânia, Salgueiro, Inajá and Parnamirim, with Ibimirim, Serra Talhada and places in Paraíba.
No source read describes the seed or the plants of the Polígono as a landrace, and the article does not call them one. Fraga and Iulianelli report (p. 32) that growers usually receive seed from those who finance the planting; where that seed comes from is not stated.

Growing status

The status is Active: the Federal Police destroyed fields in the region in every year reported from 2020 to 2025 (1,468,218 plants in 2020; 1,604,000 in 2022; 618,000 in 2023; 1,372,000 in 2024; about 434,000 in April–May 2025 and about 286,000 in September–October 2025). The police statements that eradication leaves traffickers no time to bring the crop to full growth, and that imports from Paraguay have risen, describe pressure on the crop. None says that growing in the region has ended.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy, drawn on administrative units: the 13 municipalities of the Patriota, Sá and Sato study, Belém do São Francisco, Betânia, Cabrobó, Carnaubeira da Penha, Floresta, Inajá, Manari, Mirandiba, Orocó, Parnamirim, Salgueiro, Santa Maria da Boa Vista and Tacaratu (OpenStreetMap relations 303631, 303717, 303608, 303584, 303704, 303579, 303740, 303658, 303598, 303575, 303600, 303698 and 303609). The union is about 20,900 km², the figure in the infobox.
Several of the 13 (Salgueiro, Mirandiba, Parnamirim, Inajá and Manari among them) lie inland, away from the river. They are inside the border because the police records place destroyed fields in them.
These are the units the sources point to. The authors used the police records to settle which Pernambuco municipalities make up the Polígono, because there is no agreement on its members (p. 3, citing Oliveira, Zaverucha and Rodrigues 2009).
The river islands are inside the border because the municipal boundaries take in the islands on the Pernambuco side of the river; 663 of the 684 islands mapped in OpenStreetMap on this stretch of the São Francisco fall inside it.
The Bahia side is outside. Agência Pública (2017) counts Juazeiro, Paulo Afonso, Glória and Curaçá in the Polígono and Fraga and Silva (2017) place the producing centre where Bahia, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Sergipe meet, but no source read names the Bahia municipalities where fields were destroyed in the way the Pernambuco records do. The article reports both sources.
Petrolina, Serra Talhada and Ibimirim are outside. Petrolina is named in the list in Agência Pública and in Fraga and Silva's fieldwork, and Serra Talhada and Ibimirim in the reports of 1979–1981 and the operations of 2025; none is among the 13 municipalities of the police records of 2010–2018.
The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Sources

Patriota, Sá and Sato (2021), Anuário do Instituto de Geociências 44, article 40949, 13 pp.: read in full. The page numbers given are the article's own (1–13).
Fraga and Iulianelli (2011), Dilemas 4(1): 11–39: read in full.
Rosa and Fraga (2024), Tempo Social 36(2): 239–259: read in full.
Rosa and Fraga (2023), História Unisinos 27(1): 188–201: read in full.
Fraga and Silva (2017), Tempo Social 29(2): 135–157: the passages on the region (pp. 138, 145–146, 152) were read.
Shibuya et al. (2006), Fett et al. (2020), Bettim et al. (2026): the published abstracts were read.
Press. Every article cited was read in full: Agência Pública (Gil Luiz Mendes, 5 October 2017) and the Diario de Pernambuco (16 December 2020, 27 May 2024, 20 May 2025, 7 July 2025, 30 October 2025).

Where the sources disagree

When the fields moved to the islands. Rosa and Fraga (2024, p. 246) date the use of the islands to the 1970s; Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, p. 22) place the move away from the roads after the 1980s; Fraga and Silva (2017, p. 146) date the move to the islands, mainly in Orocó and Cabrobó, to the late 1990s and the 2000s. The article gives all three.
When repression began. Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, pp. 20–21) write that repression was sporadic until the second half of the 1980s; Rosa and Fraga (2023) report large Federal Police operations in the region from 1978. The article gives both.
Plants a pit. Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, p. 29) describe pits of about 1 m² with six to eight plants; the police records of 2010–2018 give a mean of 3.66 and a mode of three (Patriota, Sá and Sato 2021, p. 9). The article gives both.
Where the crop goes. Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, p. 16): the national market except São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which draw on Paraguay; Patriota, Sá and Sato (2021, p. 6): only the north and north-east. The article gives both.
Share of the national market. 40 per cent at the height of production in the 1980s and 1990s (Fraga, quoted by Agência Pública, 2017); about 30 per cent (researchers quoted by the same report; Fett et al. 2020). Fraga and Iulianelli (2011, p. 16) give Brazil's imports as about 60 per cent of consumption, citing Fraga (2010). The article gives the first two.
Inside Patriota, Sá and Sato. The study period is November 2010 to June 2018 in the abstract and Table 1 and November 2010 to September 2018 in the methods and on p. 7; the mainland share is 27.26 per cent in the abstract and conclusion and 28.86 per cent on p. 7 (1,620 of 2,227 points on islands gives 27.26 per cent on the mainland). The article uses June 2018 and the island figure, 72.74 per cent.
Area of the Polígono. Fraga and Silva (2017, p. 138, n. 1) give the area as "aproximadamente 40.000 m²", half of it in Pernambuco. The unit cannot be right for a region of several states, so the figure is not used.

Sources not used

Oliveira, Zaverucha and Rodrigues (2009), "Polígono da Maconha: contexto socioeconômico, homicídios e atuação do Ministério Público", was not read; it is cited only through Patriota, Sá and Sato.
Fraga (2006/2007), "Plantios ilícitos no Brasil: notas sobre a violência e o cultivo de cannabis no Polígono da Maconha" (Especiaria 9(15): 95–118), and the theses of Moreira (2007), Ribeiro (2008) and Rosa (2019) were not obtained.
Rodrigues Dória (1915) and Donald Pierson (1972) are cited only through Fraga and Iulianelli and Patriota, Sá and Sato. Dória described smoking along the lower river in Sergipe and Alagoas, outside the region, so he is not cited.
Lima et al. (2005), Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública, on homicide in Pernambuco, could not be retrieved.
Operation Carcará V (Diario de Pernambuco, 14 August 2025) was read; it adds Piauí to the places named and is not cited.
Family feuds. Agência Pública (2017) names the families in the feud of the late 1980s and 1990s at Belém do São Francisco and Cabrobó. The article does not name them.