President of H360 discusses drug law on Brazilian TV
On 19/09/202309/10/2023
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President of H360 discusses drug law on Brazilian TV

InActive Citizenship, H360 in the Media, News, Violence Reduction

On September 18th, TV Cultura’s Roda Viva – one of the main journalistic programs on Brazilian television – was the stage for an in-depth debate on the causes and effects of the war on drugs, such as mass incarceration, and its possible solutions. Guest of the program, the president of the Humanitas360 Institute and advisor to the Institute for Social and Economic Research on Cannabis (IPSEC), Patrícia Villela Marino, defended the review of the current Drug Law in Brazil and emphasized the potential of Cannabis and industrial hemp for health, the environment and the country’s economy.

Asked how Brazilian society can overcome its drug policy based on repression and prohibitionism, Patrícia Villela Marino responded: “We get out of this war when we start to manufacture in Brazil the social technologies to overcome it, when we start to manufacture medicines to get out of it, when we start to produce science that proves that it is not worth continuing in it. Today, believing that Brazil is unable to monitor or have planting traceability is to say that we are not sovereign enough. We have technology and we can produce more to never enter this war again and to set an example to the world that war is not worth it, much less the war on drugs.”

During the interview, the president of H360 also recalled projects created by the Institute in the Brazilian prison system, such as the social cooperatives for incarcerated women and the multidisciplinary care offered to them, which includes professional training, legal guidance, psychological support and social assistance. She also recalled the Tereza brand, today an independent social business that helps change the lives of imprisoned women, former prisoners and victims of domestic violence.

Presented by Vera Magalhães, Roda Viva had as interviewers journalists Denis Russo Burgierman, Fernanda Mena, Lia Rizzo, Natacha Cortez and Pedro Borges, as well as cartoonist Luciano Veronezi.

You can watch the full interview with English subtitles here.