Salvo conduto para quem? Uma etnografia acerca do acesso a maconha medicinal por uma perspectiva antirracista, antiproibicionista e territorializada

Abstract

This research examines access to medicinal marijuana in Brazil through an anti-racist, anti-prohibitionist, and territorialized lens, centering on the state of Paraíba. Employing an ethnographic and autoethnographic approach, the study investigates how structural racism and prohibitionist drug policies perpetuate profound inequalities in accessing cannabis-based treatments. This system systematically privileges white bodies and socioeconomic elites while criminalizing Black, peripheral, and impoverished populations. The methodology combines a critical literature review, historical and legal document analysis, a site visit to the Brazilian Cannabis Museum (MBC), analysis of cultural production from the local Hip Hop movement, and an online survey of 55 medicinal cannabis users in Paraíba. The f indings reveal that the criminalization of cannabis, initiated by the 1830 "Pito do Pango" law, has been intrinsically tied to the control and punishment of racialized bodies. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the medicinal habeas corpus—though a hard-won judicial instrument—functions as a selective mechanism. It demands a performance of "legitimate suffering" and remains accessible primarily to those who can navigate and afford the associated legal, medical, and bureaucratic costs. The research also highlights how Hip Hop operates as a pedagogy of resistance, denouncing penal selectivity and affirming ancestral knowledge. The study concludes that the anti-prohibitionist struggle must move beyond individual judicialization to advocate for historical reparation, the radical democratization of access, and the formal recognition of Black and Indigenous ancestral knowledge systems and cultural resistance movements like Hip Hop.