Brazil becomes the largest nation to decriminalise marijuana

The court asked Brazil’s Congress and health authorities to then set the permanent amount of marijuana that citizens could possess. Selling marijuana remains a criminal offense.

Thousands of Brazilians are serving prison sentences for possessing an amount of marijuana below the new threshold, legal analysts said. It is unclear how the decision would affect those convictions.

Many are Black men, who represent 61% of drug-trafficking prosecutions but 27% of the population. Studies have shown thousands of Black Brazilians have been convicted in situations that have led to lesser or no charges against white people.

Brazil has long taken a harsh criminal approach to drugs, so its decision to effectively allow citizens to smoke marijuana is part of a remarkable shift in public opinion and public policy on the drug over the past two decades. More than 20 countries have now decriminalized or legalized recreational use of marijuana, most in Europe and the Americas.

Brazil’s Supreme Court decriminalized marijuana after nearly a decade of deliberation on a 2009 court case. That case centered on a 55-year-old man who was caught with 3 grams of marijuana while in prison on a separate charge in Sao Paulo. He was sentenced to two months of community service, but his lawyer appealed, arguing that punishing drug users violated Brazil’s Constitution.

Since 2015, the Supreme Court has delayed ruling on the case as justices disagreed on how to distinguish between users and traffickers, what drugs should be decriminalized and who should be in charge of setting drug policy. The court reached a majority Tuesday and finalized its decision Wednesday