This article aims to investigate the meanings attributed by psychiatrists and judges to the Brazilian legislation on marijuana. The text is based on qualitative research from in-depth individual interviews. A total of four psychiatrists and six judges who work in the cities of Petrolina, Pernambuco, and Juazeiro, Bahia, the largest cities in the region popularly known as Polígono da Maconha [Marijuana Polygon]. The analysis draws on Clifford Geertz’s interpretive anthropology. The conclusions point out that the practices of cultivation, consumption, and sale of marijuana, in relation to which these professionals need to position themselves, reflect the broad symbolic structures that are constitutive of their fields of action: law and psychiatry. In these structures, the legal regulation of marijuana is mostly based on prohibitionism, with a priori undetermined and deteriorating consequences for the national system of justice, police, and health. The magistrates were more critical of the current legislation on this matter and favorable to its reform.
Keywords:
Marijuana; Drug Law; psychiatrists; judges