A Política Nacional para Álcool, crack e outras drogas no Rio de Janeiro e o retorno da racionalidade punitiva

Abstract

This article outlines the results of research into public policies on alcohol and other drug use in light of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform. It departs from the hypothesis that the experience of madness and the narcotization of life are symptoms of the malaise affecting Brazilian civilization, which began building a veritable “prison archipelago” of jails, asylums and shelters for its poor in the nineteenth century, implementing a set of disciplinary proceedings whose effect was to segregate its subjects. The enactment of 2001’s Law 10.216 witnessed a rupture with the asylum model and a consolidation of the psychosocial care model for the treatment of psychological suffering, further revealing a shift in the functioning of the Brazilian state – which had previously served as a tributary of punishment rationale. Despite the dissolution of the asylum model guaranteed by the enforcement of the new law, punitive rationale and its prison archipelago still characterize social ties. The hypothesis shall be developed by means of an analysis of the national policy on alcohol and other drug use, with particular emphasis on the Protocolo do Servico Especializado em Abordagem Social [Specialist Social Approach Protocol] established by the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.