Brazil Supreme Court judge calls for drugs legalisation to beat gangs

Rising fears about the violence plaguing Brazil's overcrowded prisons and city slums
Reuters (UK)
Saturday, February 11, 2017

roberto barrosoA Brazilian Supreme Court justice called for the legalization of marijuana and even cocaine to undo the growing power of drug gangs behind a wave of violence that has shaken Latin America's largest country. Justice Roberto Barroso, a Yale graduate and constitutional law professor, said 50 years of war against drugs had failed miserably, clogging jails with small-time dealers and fuelling a violent gang battle for control of the lucrative trade. "Unlike the United States and Europe where the problem lies in the impact drugs have on consumers, in Brazil the problem lies in the power drug traffickers have over poor communities," Barroso said.