The reflexes of the new drug law on the performance of state police

Abstract

The consumption of drugs and related substances by mankind dates back to the dawn of time. However, its relevance for public health and social defense has been accentuated in the middle of the last century, when it began to be used en masse and its trafficking considered illicit in most countries. In Brazil, the law that provides for measures to repress illicit drug trafficking and prevent the use and social reintegration of users and addicts is Law 11.343, of August 23, 2006, referred to in this article as the new drug law. This law came with the proposal to correct the flaws in the previous legal system, bringing in new concepts, new typical figures and more rigorous penalties, on some occasions, and too lenient, on others. The research presented in this article has as its main focus the validation of the belief that the state police would no longer attend to drug-related incidents, due to the softening of penalties imposed on users, dedicating more operational effort to the combat of illicit trafficking.The results showed that in the states of Espírito Santo and Pernambuco (the researched universe), the police continue to attend these incidents, using the same procedures foreseen in the repealed law.