At the end of June, Latin America’s largest country decriminalized the use and possession of cannabis. Progressive though it is, the new legislation is far from unanimous. Investigation.
While personal possession of maconha has just been decriminalized, Lula’s Brazil, which is up for re-election in 2022, continues to navigate in limbo: the therapeutic cannabis sector has been waiting to be legalized for almost a decade. In South America’s leading economic power, the players committed to a dedicated industry are eclectic, from representatives of the Brazilian elite to speakers from working-class neighborhoods.
The decision had been awaited for almost a decade. Since June 25, possession of maconha (cannabis) has been considered a simple offence in Brazil, punishable by a warning issued by the police. By voting in favor of the decriminalization of cannabis for personal use, 8 of the 11 magistrates of the Brasilia-based institution put an end to a procedure begun in 2015 which aimed to rule on the constitutionality of a law passed in 2006: this considered the acquisition, conservation or transport of any type of drug for personal consumption a crime. After examination, the STF (Federal Supreme Court) had finally decided to limit the debate to cannabis alone.
The 2006 law did not punish personal use of cannabis with imprisonment, preferring educational measures and community service. But until then, in the absence of objective criteria, it was left to the police and judges of the country’s 26 states to decide. According to its detractors, however, the law was the source of a great deal of racial and social discrimination, particularly if the consumer was black and/or from the favelas and working-class neighborhoods of the country’s 215 million inhabitants. In 2023, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, one of the Supreme Court’s magistrates, denounced the fact that « young people, especially blacks, are considered to be drug traffickers if they are arrested in possession of much smaller quantities of drugs than whites over the age of thirty ».
The Supreme Court’s decision should lighten Brazil’s prison system. And from now on, the millions of Brazilian smokers will be able to shoot their maconha with less anguish, sung by everyone from Tim Maia to Erasmos Carlos, not forgetting the former Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, a long-time campaigner for its decriminalization. For many years, » he explained to the Brazilian press this year, « I experimented with cannabis and ayahuasca. These were things guided by my people, by my generation, by my peers, by my colleagues. »
72% of Brazilians are opposed to the recreational use of cannabis
The fact remains that this societal step forward was taken in the face of widespread national indifference: 72% of Brazilians say they are opposed to the recreational use of cannabis, primarily the 22% who attend evangelical churches led by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
On the other hand, the inhabitants of South America’s leading economic power are more conciliatory when it comes to the use of cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes, particularly in cosmetics – which is also the subject of debate in Brazil: in 2022, the Supreme Court authorized three patients to grow cannabis at home for medicinal purposes. This decision, which could set a precedent, comes to the rescue of the 430,000 Brazilians who today consume CBD.
Until now, they had only one option for obtaining it: to bring it in from abroad; at a high price, due to extremely high import costs. For Brazilian magistrates, growing a few cannabis plants at home is not a threat to public health. But the sages of the Supreme Court are careful to frame this decision: in order to plant cannabis, patients will have to justify a medical prescription and obtain authorization from the National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa. An extremely rigorous framework against a backdrop of great legal uncertainty. Medicinal cannabis has still not been legalized in Brazil: Bill 399 has been awaiting Congressional approval for ten years.
Activism, entrepreneurship and the new economy
Patrícia Villela Marino is one of the activists on the starting blocks (1). The philanthropic CEO of the NGO Humanitas360 is one of the leaders of the Brazilian movement advocating the legalization of medicinal cannabis. When she’s not in Brasilia, where she’s a member of the Council of the Presidency of the Republic, this Paulist travels the country’s provinces to attend forums and reflect on public policies that would support the medicinal use of cannabis as well as the industrial use of hemp. Her foundation also helps finance a think-tank dedicated to this issue. Institute for Social and Economic Research on Cannabis – » It’s about the right to life of the poorest patients.
We have no right to delay investing in this area, » she stresses. Patrícia Villela Marino is in the vanguard of the pragmatism that is beginning to take hold in business circles, among Brazilian employers and, in particular, among its particularly conservative agro-industrialists, with regard to the economic potential of the CBD and industrial hemp.
Married to Ricardo Villela Marino, from one of the three families controlling the Brazilian holding company Itaúsa and the country’s largest private bank, Itaú Unibanco, Patrícia Villela Marino is both evangelical and pro-Lula. « I’ve met many foreign companies that are speculating that our government will soon decide on a regulatory framework and are already looking to position themselves, such as the Green Hub, an American company. If we don’t want to find ourselves competing in our own country, we need to speed things up: our coffee and milk industries have collapsed. I’m convinced that the new industrial cannabis economy, which could be more inclusive than our old sectors, is our future. But the longer our legislators delay taking up this issue, the more our Brazilian start-ups and pharmaceutical companies are threatened. »
Patrícia Villela Marino, billionaire and advocate of medical cannabis
For this wealthy progressive, a member of a » comparable to the Rothschilds in wealth and influence « As Forbes magazine notes, « debating cannabis is Jesus’ agenda among us, because it requires us to overcome a lot of religiosity and self-righteousness ». A hypocrisy that does not spare the affluent in a country with one of the world’s greatest income inequalities. « Almost everyone snorts cocaine at parties, but no one dares to commit to the legalization of medical cannabis », ironizes Patricia Villela Marino, who first had to assert herself in her own milieu, even if fortune is a persuasive argument.
« Lula elected president is excellent news for cannabis in Brazil. » Rafael Arcuri, President of the National Association of Industrial Hemp Producers
According to the second Brazilian medicinal cannabis yearbook, published by Kaya Mind in 2022, Brazilian cannabis, if legalized both recreationally and therapeutically, could bring in, after five years of shimming, up to 5.3 billion to the national economy and help create 328 new jobs. 000 jobs. « The eyes of the world are on our country, » says Viviane Sedola, founder of the online company Dr Cannabis, member of the Brazilian Economic and Social Council and of a federal government working group on psychoactive substances. Indeed, a medicinal cannabis economy has already developed in Brazil, without waiting for it to be legalized. Importers, pharmaceutical companies, platforms and associations: the thousand or so Brazilian companies already operating in the CBD sector generated 700 million reais (over 100 million euros) in 2023, representing growth of 92% compared with 2022, according to data collected by Kaya Mind.
The pioneers involved in this nascent Brazilian medicinal cannabis economy form a diverse group. Some entered the circuit after experimenting with its health benefits, like forty-two-year-old former professional tennis player Bruno Soares, who first used it for its anti-inflammatory effects. In 2022, on leaving the professional circuit, Soares invested over a million euros through his MadFish fund in the Ease Labs laboratory in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, which imports and distributes medicinal cannabis-based medicines. Carioca musician Marcelo Maldonado Gomes Peixoto, aka Marcelo D2, fifty-six, leader of the Planet Hemp band, has just launched his own range of CBD-based products, Koba by MD2, produced in partnership with Paraguayan company Koba, which « aims to democratize access to these medicines ».
Other players come from the world of science. Claudio Lottenberg, former CEO of Albert-Einstein Hospital (one of Brazil’s best and most famous private hospitals) and now Chairman of the institution’s Board of Directors, also heads up Zion MedPharma and Endogen, sites focused on cannabis-based products. At his side is Dirceu Barbano, former director of the National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa, which oversees the prescription and dispensing of cannabis-based medicines. All these operators are awaiting the decisions to be taken in Brasilia. : » If Lula is elected president, it’s great news for cannabis in Brazil, » noted lawyer Rafael Arcuri, president of the National Association of Industrial Hemp Producers, in 2023. But it’s still difficult to speculate on what might happen and how. The best hypothesis is that cannabis and hemp will be subject to broader regulations, with more authorized uses for cannabinoids or hemp. But cultivation on Brazilian soil remains a delicate issue. Lula can also use his powers to propose a new bill, more suited to this Congress, or issue a presidential decree regulating various aspects of cannabis and hemp marketing. » Order and progress… at last?
Jean-Christophe Servant
1) The words of Patrícia Villela Marino, who has chosen not to communicate with the media for the time being, are taken from interviews given to the Brazilian press between 2023 and 2024.
