Brazil Abandon's "Anti' Drug Crusade

Brazilian authorities announced this week they're to start treating drug use as a public health problem rather than criminal matter, and are henceforth changing the name off their "National Anti-Drug Policy' to "National Policy on Drugs.'

Under the new strategy, President Lula da Silva's government are to focus on harm reduction policies, creating centres for safe drug use, leading newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported this week

"Changing the name is a symbol, and there will be a change in orientation," government minister Pedro Gabriel Delgado told the newspaper. "The country is maturing in order to put forward a more pragmatic policy."

Brazil's newly enlightened approach coincided with the publication of a report into drug use by prestigious British magazine New Scientist this week, which they headlined with the strap-line "Getting high is only human'.

"Since prehistoric times, humans have been seeking out and using intoxicating substances," the magazine pointed out, "most people who have ever lived have experienced a chemically induced altered state of consciousness, and the same is true of people alive today."

"We seek intoxication for a simple reason that we are almost too scared to admit - we like it," they added, "intoxication can be fun, sociable, memorable, therapeutic, even mind expanding."
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