<story><title>Brazil&apos;s Supreme Court decriminalizes marijuana</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-25/brazil-supreme-court-decriminalizes-marijuana-for-personal-use</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>vitorgrs</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth to remind, in the current Brazilian legislation, is not a crime. There was a new drugs law in 2006, that was aiming exactly on &amp;quot;decriminalization&amp;quot;, somewhat similar to what Portugal did a few years ago back then.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s considered only a misdemeanor to use drugs in Brazil.&lt;p&gt;The thing is, in the law, it never says how much of a drug is a crime or not. So you can already guess what end up happening.&lt;p&gt;The law in 2006 was so open, that what happened, was an increase of people arrested, and not a decrease.&lt;p&gt;So in my opinion, this is a complete valid from Supreme Court, because there is a legal problem with how the lower courts are judging here. The decision from Supreme Court is actually because of a man that was convicted in São Paulo Court, with 3 grams (!).&lt;p&gt;Fun fact: The 2006 law doesn&amp;#x27;t even mention which drug is a drug. It says that Anvisa (Brazil FDA) is that classify that.&lt;p&gt;So if a President really want to make it LEGAL, they could just nominate liberal names on Anvisa, and suddenly, Anvisa could classify weed and other drugs as non-dangerous, and it would be legal to even sell it...&lt;p&gt;Another fun fact: in 2000, by mistake, ANVISA removed a poppers drug (Chloroethane) from the drugs that was banned.... So for a few weeks, it was completely legal Chloroethane. And a guy end up being released from prison because of this!</text></comment>
<story><title>Brazil&apos;s Supreme Court decriminalizes marijuana</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-25/brazil-supreme-court-decriminalizes-marijuana-for-personal-use</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Perenti</author><text>I had a friend get charged with cultivation in 1982 for 200 female plants.&lt;p&gt;His lawyer called in lots of witnesses that Geoff smoked a _lot_ of dope, and that it was for personal use.  He also presented a petition with nearly half his village saying it was personal use, as he really smoked a _lot_ of dope.  He also helped anyone with any task, and was a generally loved person, not a drug crazed maniac, but very very chill.&lt;p&gt;He was fined for personal use.  This was Australia, not Brazil, but Judges are supposed to use discretion.  The only problem is when discretion is code for prejudice, not justice.</text></comment>