Do pito de pango à probição: reflexões históricas, criminológicas e jurídicas sobre a criminalização da maconha no Brasil (1890-1940)

Abstract

The present work intends to (re)discuss the marijuana prohibition in Brazil. In this sense, the period between 1890 and 1940, the year of the promulgation of the current Brazilian Penal Code, will be studied. This analysis has the potential to bring new insights into the critical field of Penal Law and of Criminology, since it aims to unravel the various discourses that led to the criminalization of the “pito de pango”, a term given to cannabis even in the imperial period. In this way, it is crucial to understand Rosa del Olmo’s (1990, 2004) studies on the complexity of the criminal issue, especially about drugs, in Latin America, which will contribute to reflection on a “hidden face of marijuana”. In order to do so, we use the index method proposed by Ginzburg (1989), which emphasizes the importance of analyzing the fragments and signs found at the side of the data so that a complex reality can be traced back to the literature review. Thus, it is sought the reconstruction of the discourses of a period (1890-1940) determinant for the prohibition of marijuana in Brazil, since while the search for the introduction of liberal ideas in tropical lands was still reluctant for the permanence of the legal thinking of social control.