A Política de Assistência Social no Contexto do Acirramento da Proibição das Drogas: um estudo sobre a proteção e a punição na cidade de Fortaleza/CE

Abstract

Understanding the connections between social assistance policy, prohibitionism, and the war on drugs was the central objective of this doctoral academic research. Based on the reality of the city of Fortaleza, through the management of the Secretariat of Human Rights and Social Development (SDHDS), and referencing the 2021–2024 period under the administration of Mayor José Sarto Nogueira (Democratic Labour Party), the study sought to elucidate whether the socio-assistance actions provided displayed and were shaped by conservative, moralistic, prohibitionist, and punitive content in relation to individuals involved in drug circuits – particularly those labeled as users, small-scale psychoactive substance dealers, as well as their families living in territories marked by poverty, extreme deprivation, and intense expressions of violence in the capital of Ceará. Anchored in the historical-dialectical method and grounded in marxist critical social theory, the investigation was carried out through a quantitative and qualitative approach, engaging 24 workers from the social assistance policy sector (at both technical and higher education levels), distributed across both basic and specialized social facilities. In addition to bibliographic and documentary research, interviews with these professionals enabled the analysis of their diverse, complex, contradictory, and significant perceptions regarding social assistance: its protective capacity, the main demands encountered in institutional daily routines, their views on drugs and prohibitionism, their understanding of psychoactive substance users, the underlying perspectives of the actions carried out in communities, and the role of public policy in addressing the issue of drugs. The study also aimed to understand how these professionals perceived territorial articulations, from an intersectoral perspective, in response to abusive and/or problematic situations, considering the horizon of prevention and harm reduction within communities. Through the content of various oral accounts, it was possible to comprehend that, in the research locus, the city of Fortaleza, social assistance – within the scope of the drug issue – tended to form a symbiotic relationship with the individuals and their social practices involving drugs: the institutional policy offered meager and incipient socio-assistance protection, while simultaneously denying or only partially guaranteeing the social rights of those individuals. Moreover, it contributed to and reinforced the prohibitionist paradigm, characterized by institutionalization and punishment. Although institutional discourse often emphasized the guarantee of rights and the promotion of socio-assistance protection, it became evident that, in the daily functioning of the institutions, deep-rooted processes contradicted the narratives of local Governance – therefore hindering access to services for a significant portion of the population in need. Yet, within this contradictory context, subtle fissures could be found. There were few, but meaningful, political-professional experiences that opposed such dominant perspectives and sought to offer activities grounded in the social and human rights of these individuals – experiences that, albeit timidly, resonated with the core objectives of social assistance policy.