A Pointless War - Drugs and Violence in Brazil

The document is produced by the Transnational Institute, an international network of activist-scholars who analyze current global problems. The paper is part of a series of debate papers about drugs and conflict and the authors explore the particular circumstances surrounding the connected issues of cannabis/marijuana production in rural Brazil and violence. The authors include a brief history of drug law in Brazil as background for analyzing new drug laws, along with a detailed analysis of the situation in Rio de Janeiro, and conclude that current drug control policies only increase the violence associated with social conflict in Brazil.