The following article, signed by the president of the Humanitas360 Institute, Patrícia Villela Marino, was published on the Times Brasil/CNBC website on December 23.
In December of this year, Donald Trump signed an executive order to accelerate the process of reclassifying marijuana in the United States. The most right-wing president in recent American history did what progressive Brazilian governments have failed to do for over a decade.
In 2014, the documentary “Ilegal: A Vida Não Espera” (Illegal: Life Won’t Wait) premiered in Brazilian theaters, telling the story of the Fischer family’s struggle to import CBD from abroad and save the life of Anny, then five years old, who suffered up to 80 seizures per week. The film became a landmark in the public debate about medical cannabis in the country. More than ten years later, the assessment is bleak.
Cultivation remains prohibited as a rule, with exceptions obtained through the courts. Bill 399/2015, which would legalize domestic production for medicinal purposes, has been stalled in Congress since 2021. Judicialization has exploded: from 17 cases in the Superior Court of Justice in 2020 to 384 in 2024 – an increase of 2,158%.
Recent research by Ipea shows that the average spending on judicially-obtained medications corresponded to 32.9% of total medication spending by Brazilian states. In the case of cannabis, nearly 300 million reais were spent by the SUS (public health system) in recent years. An amount that only needed to be spent because the State failed to regulate what is already scientific consensus.
In 2025, more than 800,000 Brazilian patients are in treatment and depend on an expensive and exclusionary system. One example of this is that the average price in pharmacies is around 700 reais per bottle. Democratic access is still the exception: many depend on a lawyer or imported products.
And what about the Lula government? In October 2022, still a candidate, the president declared: “This is not an issue that the government has to address. This is an issue that either the National Congress addresses, or the Supreme Court takes care of it.” Lula has a granddaughter who uses cannabis derivatives for seizures. Even so, he delegated the responsibility. The PT governed Brazil for 14 years and the country still lacks a national regulatory framework for medicinal cultivation. The Drug Law of 2006, signed into law by Lula, did not define an objective criterion between user and trafficker, expanding the margin of interpretation.
The irony is sharp. Trump, the conservative, signed an order to accelerate the reclassification of cannabis from Schedule I (heroin category) to Schedule III (category of accepted medications). If completed, the change does not legalize recreational use, but could transform the sector’s economy: it may allow tax deductions for expenses, facilitate research, and the government is evaluating a Medicare pilot program to expand elderly access to CBD.
In the U.S., nearly half of the Republican caucus in the Senate opposed it. Trump ignored them. In Brazil, the Executive hides behind the Legislative, which hides behind religious caucuses, while the Judiciary becomes the only path – slow, expensive, and unjust.
Who knows if this couldn’t be a future conversation between Lula and Trump? An unlikely topic, certainly. But if the order cites veterans and the elderly, what prevents the Brazilian progressive leader from doing the same for his population?
More than ten years later, “life continues not waiting,” and Brazil remains paralyzed.
Patrícia Villela Marino is a lawyer and president of the Humanitas360 Institute.
