The Slow Pace of Drug Policy Reform Under the Lula Administration

By Natalia Viana
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

March 4, 2005

Sao Paulo native Tomás Vieira, 25, celebrated one year out of prison in January. A civil engineer who studied at the University of Sao Paulo, one of the country’s best, Tomás was locked up for a habit that he has had for more than five years. No, he is not a criminal. He is a marijuana user.

On a Friday night, October 10, 2003, the police picked up Tómas as he returned to his house. He had with him one hundred grams of marijuana, and was getting ready to smoke a joint and relax after a week of hard work. When taken to the police station, he tried to explain that the drug was for personal consumption, but the police commissioner didn’t listen.

“I was in a cell with thirty other prisoners. I had no bed, blanket, sheets, or mattress, my family had to bring me anything like that. I had no latrine, toilet paper, toothbrush, none of those things.”

Tomás could not shut his eyes for a week. Without a bed in the thirty-person cell, he had to sleep on the little free floor space he could find. He had to share the blanket his family brought him with another prisoner who didn’t have one. He did it out of fear – fear that the other prisoners would discover he was just a middle-class stoner. “I was afraid they would rob me, or stab me, if I closed my eyes. I was very afraid of getting sick, because there was no type of hygiene; there were rats and cockroaches. The food wasn’t good; I was drinking the yellowish water that dripped down the walls. And since there wasn’t medical care, if you got sick it was very difficult.”

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