Why legalise drugs? How I helped Health Poverty Action make the case for reform from inside a São Paulo favela

Moving the development sector on drug policy

Health Poverty Action wanted the development sector to treat drug policy reform as its business. Punitive drug policies criminalise marginalised communities and create cycles of violence and oppression, yet the issue is rarely framed as one of poverty and inequality.

A community leader, in his own words

The film builds on Health Poverty Action’s report Punishing Poverty and on progress at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs towards moving away from prohibition. It centres on Marcio, a favela community leader who has seen the discrimination and brutality of drug policy enforced by a corrupt police regime.

In his words, “the privileged and the disadvantaged have a different experience of the police forces”. He calls drug policy racist, and says it creates violence.

Making economic pressure visible

I set out to visualise the economic pressures that push people into the lowest levels of the drugs trade, and the deadly consequences when marginalised communities clash with police. Paraisópolis sits right beside towering apartments with private pools, and that one view shows the inequality the film is about.

Production