Young people from the outskirts of the city are gaining space and a voice in the 'war on drugs' debate.

Fernanda Canofre, On the 21 Aristênio's friends began dying when he was 12 years old. From the group of boys he grew up with in Parque União, within Complexo da Maré, the largest favela complex in Rio de Janeiro, he lost one, then another, until he realized he could be next. One day, while playing video games with other children, he saw his brother get hit in the leg by a stray bullet from the military police. The bullet was a result of a dispute between the military police and drug traffickers.

“They came in criminalizing us, a bunch of poor kids, saying we were also involved in drug trafficking. Which happens a lot,” he recalls. “I’ve lost friends to this day. The justification is always: ‘ah, but they were involved in drug trafficking.’ That’s a lie. We lose many people who aren’t. And even if they were… Brazil doesn’t have the death penalty, but the police are judges on the street.”

Aristênio Gomes arrived in Maré with his family when he was 8 years old. His parents came from Patos, in Paraíba, in search of work and sustenance. “It was crazy, because it’s a totally different reality. I started seeing a lot of guns, the police coming in daily, shootouts, and things I had never experienced before,” he says. “At the same time, it was incredibly enriching to grow up there. It gave me a different perspective on life than I would have had otherwise. I grew up within that culture, among Black people, with funk music, and that’s part of my history.” Today, at 26, Aristênio Gomes is an educator at the Center for Studies and Solidarity Actions of Maré (Ceasm).

His work placed him among the 15 young people to join Movimentos, a project that brings together residents of favelas in Rio and the Baixada Fluminense region to discuss "drugs, youth, and favelas," launched on September 02nd. The idea arose to give voice to those who live in the favelas—and who suffer the most from the consequences of the state's war on drugs—in the debate on this subject.

For a year, the participants, selected from among leaders and influential people in their communities, took part in seminars and workshops with researchers and specialists to understand the discussion at hand. The booklet is available on... project websiteIn addition to a history of drug prohibition and the effects of the laws, they argue that a new drug policy is necessary and urgent, and they position themselves as protagonists in the debate about it. No longer are they supporting actors who merely reap the consequences.

“For us, [the war on drugs] means closed schools, changes in routine, fear of leaving home, extreme concern for our well-being and that of our families. In the name of this war, the State justifies a series of human rights violations against us, young people from favelas and peripheries. But this war is not ours. We did not declare the war on drugs. We did not decide that some drugs would be considered legal and others illegal. But we are the ones who die because of it. Drug use has not decreased, the illegal trade has not ended. On the contrary, the war on drugs has brought more violence, corruption, and inequality than one could imagine. Because of it, we have lost the potential of a generation of young people – mostly Black – who, murdered or imprisoned, end up becoming statistics,” the text says.

Brazil registers an average of 60 homicides per year. Of every 100 deaths, 71 are black. According to a survey conducted by the Center for Violence Studies at the University of São Paulo (NEV/USP), in partnership with the G1 website and the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, although there is no direct association between drug trafficking and violence, there is a relationship between competition in the illegal drug market and violence. Among the male prison population – 67% of whom are black – 28% are imprisoned for drug trafficking. For women, this percentage jumps to around 70%.

“What motivated us most [to do this project] was the police violence inside the favelas, what happens inside them. Today, for example, there was a police operation here in Maré and I couldn't go out to work. There's still shooting going on, lots of police in the streets. If I go out now, anything could happen,” says Mayara Donaria, in a telephone interview with Sul21.

Because discussing drugs in the favela is different.

But what changes in the debate about drugs made by and for the favela? According to the young people of the Movement, a lot.

“Our role is to discuss this here, because people don’t understand (…) It’s not a discussion that’s happening now. We’ve always seen the violence happen and understood that it was because of this. But we don’t make the connection that, if this issue were handled better, maybe these things wouldn’t happen,” explains Mayara, 20, who works with cultural production and community communication in Maré. “We see a lot of data showing that drugs are consumed more outside the favela. The people who make money from this aren’t here. Here we don’t have weapons factories, cocaine or marijuana plantations. We are the collateral damage.”

Aristênio says he never felt included in the debate about drugs. According to him, in the beginning, he also had things to learn to better understand some of the concepts and effects. His own mother, who, like many mothers in the favela, saw involvement with drug trafficking as a death sentence for her children, now understands her son's point of view.

“What’s not being done with some of the middle-class proposals is that intellectuals and politicians who are thinking about decriminalization aren’t taking this debate to the favelas. That’s one point. The second point is how do we reverse all the regression, how do we build something new, how do we take that youth who are involved with [drug trafficking] and have committed crimes within the scope of trafficking, but who, from the moment the sale becomes legal, this market goes into white hands? How do we reuse and give new meaning to this, let the people who were already there take over and generate jobs?” he asks.

Ari also points out that, while the vanguard of the legalization discourse outside the favela focuses on bodily rights, recreational and medicinal use, within the favela the focus is on police matters. “You don't have a bill or a proposal that says: we recognize that for 40 years, we committed a crime against the people of the favela and the periphery, and this neglect generated millions of ills. That's not considered. There's no thought given to how to undo the chaos that exists in the favela, due to all this criminalization. There's no thought given to how the State can reverse these 40 years of backwardness.”

Resistance and experience

One of the creators of the Movement, Julita Lemgruber, a Sociology professor at the Center for Studies on Security and Citizenship (Cesec) at Cândido Mendes University, also acknowledges the “resistance” to the subject within the favela. “In the favela, [the resistance to discussing the debate] is very acute because of this perception that the problem is drugs. The problem in the favela is racism, it's poverty. Brazil has only recently begun to discuss drug policy from a racial perspective; a Black initiative emerged less than two years ago.”

Julita, who was previously the director of the Rio prison system and a police ombudsman, states that the group trained within the project "has the legitimacy and authority to speak about drug policies, due to the fact that they live in the favela and are victims of a misguided policy that chose violent confrontation with retail drug dealing as a security policy."

“The uniqueness of this material lies in this. This is material produced by the favela and for the favela. It is not produced by white middle-class experts, who consider themselves well-informed, talking about drug policies,” he argues.

For her, the public security crisis experienced by Rio de Janeiro – which includes the ostentatious presence of the Armed Forces in favelas like Rocinha – has laid bare the truth about the failure of combat policies. “It has never been so evident that this violent confrontation with retail drug trafficking has failed. Today, this is the greatest example of an insane and short-sighted policy (…) I am convinced that the favela needs to mature this debate. It needs to challenge the logic that the fight against drug trafficking justifies police violence. It is this logic that the young people of the Movement want to challenge.”

Besides activism and being active in their communities, the young people in the project share another thing in common: they have all witnessed someone die. For Mayara, it was her uncle, her mother's brother, at her front door. “It's very common to see aunts cleaning blood off the sidewalk. And we have to normalize all of this. The role of the movement is not to consider this normal. It's to criticize. This shouldn't happen, let's change it, but how do we change it?” she asks.

For now, the focus is on building dialogue. The Movement organizes itself in weekly discussion circles in the favelas where the young people participating in the project live, and at the Cândido Mendes University Center. By the end of the year, the group already has a national meeting planned, which will bring together young people from all over Brazil, engaged in their communities and in the debate about drugs, in Rio de Janeiro. The goal is for the debate, through the project, to become national.

In addition to reviewing the unproductive confrontation, the Movement also seeks to outline alternatives for people who survived as laborers in the drug trade, a business model that integrates residents into the market, and recognition for those who died in the war waged against the favela.

“The favela adapts to the violence. If there's shooting, you have to close earlier, stop doing certain things, and so on. I think legalization is a very new issue, but the favela has many churches that already work with drug users and understand that killing and imprisoning is not the solution. It's a population we want to work with and talk to. They serve these people, but they don't talk about legalization, due to doctrinal reasons,” says Mayara.