“Vai rolar essa diamba?”: uma etnografia de usos medicinais, religiosos e recreativos da maconha em um bairro periférico de Belém/PA

Abstract

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.