Brazil’s drug policy is desperately lacking — but not because the UN says so

By Amanda Audi

The latest Global Drug Policy Index report ranked Brazil’s policy of controlling and regulating controlled substances dead last out of 30 countries analyzed. However, in the view of psychiatrist Luís Fernando Tófoli — a drug policy researcher at the University of Campinas — while the country rightfully finds itself poorly ranked, its shortcomings are not down to the reasons highlighted by the UN.

Speaking to The Brazilian Report, the researcher explains why exactly Brazil fares so poorly against the rest of the world — even falling behind countries with notoriously bad drug policies, such as Indonesia, where the...