Questões de Concursos Vestibular

Brazil must legalise drugs – its existing policy just destroys lives

For decades, guns and imprisonment have been the hallmarks of Brazil’s war against the drug trafficking. But the only way to beat the gangs is to stop creating criminals, says a top Brazilian judge

“The war raging in Rocinha, Latin America’s largest favela, has already been lost. Rooted in a dispute between gangs for control of drug trafficking, it has disrupted the daily life of the community in Rio de Janeiro since mid-September. With the sound of shots coming from all sides, schools and shops are constantly forced to close. Recently, a stray bullet killed a Spanish tourist. The war is not the only thing being lost.

For decades, Brazil has had the same drug policy approach. Police, weapons and numerous arrests. It does not take an expert to conclude the obvious: the strategy has failed. Drug trafficking and consumption have only increased. […]

In a case still before the Brazilian supreme court, I voted for decriminalising the possession of marijuana for private consumption. […]

Drugs are an issue that has a profound impact on the criminal justice system, and it is legitimate for the supreme court to participate in the public debate. So here are the reasons for my views.

First, drugs are bad and it is therefore the role of the state and society to discourage consumption, treat dependents and repress trafficking. The rationale behind legalisation is rooted in the belief that it will help in achieving these goals.

Second, the war on drugs has failed. Since the 1970s, under the influence and leadership of the US, the world has tackled this problem with the use of police forces, armies, and armaments. The tragic reality is that 40 years, billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of prisoners and thousands of deaths later, things are worse. At least in countries like Brazil.

Third, as the American economist Milton Friedman argued, the only result of criminalisation is ensuring the trafficker’s monopoly.

With these points in mind, what would legalisation achieve?

In most countries in North America and Europe, the greatest concern of the authorities is users and the impact drugs have on their lives and on society. These are all important considerations. In Brazil, however, the principal focus must be ending the dominance drug dealers exercise over poor communities. Gangs have become the main political and economic power in thousands of modest neighbourhoods in Brazil. This scenario prevents a family of honest and hard-working people from educating their children away from the influence of criminal factions, who intimidate, co-opt and exercise an unfair advantage over any lawful activity. Crucially, this power of trafficking comes from illegality.

Another benefit of legalisation would be to prevent the mass incarceration of impoverished young people with no criminal record who are arrested for trafficking because they are caught in possession of negligible amounts of marijuana. A third of detainees in Brazil are imprisoned for drug trafficking. Once arrested, young prisoners will have to join one of the factions that control the penitentiaries – and on that day, they become dangerous.

[…]

We cannot be certain that a progressive and cautious policy of decriminalisation and legalisation will be successful. What we can affirm is that the existing policy of criminalisation has failed. We must take chances; otherwise, we risk simply accepting a terrible situation. As the Brazilian navigator Amyr Klink said: “The worst shipwreck is not setting off at all.”

Disponível em:<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/15/brazil-must-legalise-drugs-existing-policy-destroys-lives-luis-roberto-barroso-supreme-court-judge>. Acesso em: 14 nov. 2017.

Tell Us What to Call the Generation After Millennials {Please)

Millennials are getting older. Not that much older, of course. We're a roughly defined generational cohort, but arguably the oldest members of our demographic set are just beginning to reach the age of 40.

Meanwhile, the American generation behind millennials has started to move intothe workplace. And while some have proposed names for this group born in 1995 and after — Generation Z, PostMillennials, The Homeland Generation, iGeneration — all of these names are bad. The first two don't even strive for originality! Come on. Then again, it's hard to know what makes a generational name stick.

"Millennial" was coined in the late 1980s by the consultants Neil Howe and William Strauss, both baby boomers, before the term Generation X was even popularized. (They wanted to call them "13th Gen," but that didn't stick, and neither did "slackers."

But their term "millennial" did not become the dominant name for the huge generation after those two until much later. "In retrospect, it's easy to see that names that people gravitate to say something," Mr. Howe said in a recent interview. "Either the name itself or the way in which it was adapted."

But Malcolm Harris, the millennial author of "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials," argues that those most interested in naming generations are those trying to sell things to that cohort.

"Generations are really only understood in retrospect," Mr. Harris said. "Some people have a financial interest in naming them as soon as possible, people trying to sell stuff. That's the first perspective we get on any cohort, and I don't think it's necessarily a very good one."

One stumbling block is a lack of agreement about the birth years for each generation. People on the fringes can feel as if they've got almost nothing in common with the rest of the group. A few years' difference can determine if you could have been drafted for Vietnam, watched the first MTV videos, or were born into a world of instant messaging.

In 2015, the Census Bureau said that there were 83.1 million American millennials (born between 1982 and 2000), exceeding the 75.4 million baby boomers (between 1946 and 1964), and the 65 million that Pew Research said belong in Generation X (between 1965 and 1980). But the generation after millennials is still so ill-defined (probably because of the whole name issue) that an accurate count has not yet been established.

And a good name? Nope.

Fonte: New York Times. Publicado em 23/01/2018. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes. com/2018/01/23/style/generation-names.html

Tell Us What to Call the Generation After Millennials {Please)

Millennials are getting older. Not that much older, of course. We're a roughly defined generational cohort, but arguably the oldest members of our demographic set are just beginning to reach the age of 40.

Meanwhile, the American generation behind millennials has started to move intothe workplace. And while some have proposed names for this group born in 1995 and after — Generation Z, PostMillennials, The Homeland Generation, iGeneration — all of these names are bad. The first two don't even strive for originality! Come on. Then again, it's hard to know what makes a generational name stick.

"Millennial" was coined in the late 1980s by the consultants Neil Howe and William Strauss, both baby boomers, before the term Generation X was even popularized. (They wanted to call them "13th Gen," but that didn't stick, and neither did "slackers."

But their term "millennial" did not become the dominant name for the huge generation after those two until much later. "In retrospect, it's easy to see that names that people gravitate to say something," Mr. Howe said in a recent interview. "Either the name itself or the way in which it was adapted."

But Malcolm Harris, the millennial author of "Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials," argues that those most interested in naming generations are those trying to sell things to that cohort.

"Generations are really only understood in retrospect," Mr. Harris said. "Some people have a financial interest in naming them as soon as possible, people trying to sell stuff. That's the first perspective we get on any cohort, and I don't think it's necessarily a very good one."

One stumbling block is a lack of agreement about the birth years for each generation. People on the fringes can feel as if they've got almost nothing in common with the rest of the group. A few years' difference can determine if you could have been drafted for Vietnam, watched the first MTV videos, or were born into a world of instant messaging.

In 2015, the Census Bureau said that there were 83.1 million American millennials (born between 1982 and 2000), exceeding the 75.4 million baby boomers (between 1946 and 1964), and the 65 million that Pew Research said belong in Generation X (between 1965 and 1980). But the generation after millennials is still so ill-defined (probably because of the whole name issue) that an accurate count has not yet been established.

And a good name? Nope.

Fonte: New York Times. Publicado em 23/01/2018. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes. com/2018/01/23/style/generation-names.html