Congress passes law that authorizes compulsory hospitalisation of chemically dependent individuals
The PLC 37 (bill of law), the author of which is the incumbent minister Osmar Terra, goes against the basic principles of the psychiatric reform and places abstinence as the central objective of the treatment of dependent people
Yesterday, 15 May, the Senate plenary session passed Chamber bill of law 37/2013, in which changes to the national drugs policy are proposed, such as compulsory hospitalisation and the incorporation of therapeutic communities into the National System of Public Policies on Drugs (Sisnad). The proposal goes against international recommendations on the treatment of drug dependency.
As well as setting out means of public funding for therapeutic communities – clinics of a religious nature that have been accused of torture and forced labour in the past – the project, the author of which is the incumbent minister of citizenship, Osmar Terra, places emphasis on abstinence as the central measure for treating dependents, disregarding policies of damage control as an alternative.
“This approval represents a serious setback in drugs policy. The proposal goes against established international protocol regarding assistance to dependent individuals,” explains Henrique Apolinário, Lawyer on the Institutional Violence programme at Conectas. “The right to autonomy and self-regulation and respecting human rights are essential for effectiveness and must be complied with in any strategy for treating dependency,” he adds.
The bill in the Senate was rushed through. The approved text was written by senator Styvenson Valentim (Podemos-RN), who used the version that was originally proposed by the Chamber in 2013, so that he would not have to go back to councillors for their analysis, given the amendments and substitutions suggested by the Committee for Constitution, Justice and Citizenship (CCJ) and by the Committee for Education, Culture and Sport (CE) when it was voted on in 2014. The changes made by these committees corrected critical points in the original text, establishing the definition of the minimum parameter for possession of drugs, in order to differentiate between users and dealers and the reduction in sentences for ‘privileged traffic’, ie, for those accused of dealing in small quantities.
This urgency was justified by the resumption of the STF’s (Supreme Federal Court) judgment on the decriminalisation of drugs, scheduled for 5 June. However, the Supreme Court’s agenda will be limited to the unconstitutionality of article 28 of the Drugs Law, that allows for the criminalisation of drugs possession for personal use and bears no relation to the changes proposed in PLC 37. Members of Congress argue that, if this had not been voted as a matter of urgency by the Senate, decisions related to drugs policy would have fallen into the hands of Supreme Court ministers rather than the legislative assembly. The bill is now subject to sanction by the president.
