This work aims to identify and understand different uses of marijuana by residents of a
neighborhood on the outskirts of Belém/PA. The presence of marijuana could be perceived in
recreational, medicinal and religious contexts. People who live in the same territory
experience police repression, spatial segregation, moral prohibition, and the high cost of the
drug derived from marijuana in a scenario in which recreational use suffers strong repression,
while medicinal use has its own consequences. discrete and selectively flexible access. I
carried out this ethnography in different places within the neighborhood: the condominium - a
well-urbanized leisure space with a landscape very different from the rest of the
neighborhood; the margin - space that is divided between a fair during the day and
headquarters of sound system parties during the night; and in the streets and squares - on the
outskirts of both places. The first entries into the field were due to my personal experiences,
which were added to what was experienced with the interlocutors in the production of
ethnographic data. To protect everyone involved in the research, places and people had their
names hidden or fictionalized. The results of the ethnographic work will be presented in three
sections. First, we will address recreational uses, discussing differences in police repression of
users based on racial criteria, and how the stereotype of the pothead has historically fallen on
blacks and the poor, supporting policies of spatial segregation to this day. Then, we will
present the religious uses in a candomblé terreiro in the neighborhood, in which marijuana
appears as another ritual element, albeit invisible. The third section will reflect on the unequal
difficulties that women in the neighborhood face in seeking health care with medical
marijuana, due to a hegemonic morality, and the racism experienced in attempts to access
health services.
|
