Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

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The drug phenomenon affects us all. Without exception. Even if there isn’t a drug user in your family, the danger lies in street hold-ups. There is nothing worse than being held up by someone who is on drugs. In their mind any gesture, however innocent, can be a reaction which deserves death.

The large number of addicts is worrying, but not only on the streets. In every social class there are those who are dependent on drugs. Not only forbidden ones like cocaine and opium, but also those acquired in drugstores (with false prescriptions) or in hospitals (pilfered). In both cases the extra cash will corrupt an employee and a prescription drug will easily reach the hands of users.

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Frei Betto beim Website-Interview im Dominikanerkloster von Sao Paulo.

Middle and upper class families know the torture caused from having a drug user in the family. The state, bothered by the urban scene of crack areas, advocates compulsory admittance in clinics. Actually this is a measure adopted as well by certain families who can afford to pay for (supposed) recovery clinics.

There are questions which will not be silenced but which families and the state insist on hushing up: what makes a person use drugs? What is the solution to this problem?

If tomorrow hosts used in churches, which are offered free, were to become trendy, they would fetch the market price, just as torn jeans sell today in sophisticated shops. It so happens that only people who take communion for religious reasons consume hosts. Likewise drug traffic – which should be vigorously attacked – only exists because there is an ample and voracious consumer market.

What makes a person consume drugs is lack of self esteem. Feeling inferior, unloved, pressured by competitive stress, the person finds in drugs a resource that will alter his or her state of consciousness. Thus he or she will feel much more able to face reality than if his or her head were clear. This is certainly true with certain drugs like cocaine which produce a sense of omnipotence.

Every drug user is a potential mystic who knows that happiness is a subjective experience. Only being human can bring happiness. If you were to give a user gold bars to help him or her give up the drug and start a new life, they would soon try and sell the gold to pay for drugs.

Drugs relate to our scale of values. There is a strong educational component here. If young people are educated towards prioritising values of wealth, success, power and beauty, they will tend to become vulnerable to drugs which will periodically and temporarily function like a blanket to warm their frustrated ambitions.

I warn my friends who have small children: give them a lot of attention and love, especially until they are 12 years old. Placing them in clinics can be useful in situations of crisis, or a fit. They are never a solution. Every addict is crying out in their own way “I want to be loved”.

What can the state do in light of this chemical epidemic? Compulsory admittance?  It works provisionally just like cleaning up the urban scene. In a country such as  ours, where the health system is so precarious, it is hard to believe that there are enough recovery clinics with sufficient pedagogy for treating all drug users.

The solution is probably not simple for those who have already broken family ties. However, yes, there is, a preventive solution if the state does its duty assuring quality education for all children and youth. A young person who dreams of being a competent professional would never enter the drug scene if she or he had an education guaranteed, especially one centred on altruistic, solidary and spiritual values.

I lived in a “favela” (shanty town) for five years. I learned that a drug dealer does not want his child to follow in his footsteps. His dream is that he will become a doctor. Therefore, when the state supplies the drug dealers’ nests with more schools, music, theatres, gyms, libraries, fewer police raids and “stray” bullets, we will have fewer users and dealers.

Portugal taught Brazil much: language, the pleasures of cheese, Christian faith, sacred art, a taste for literature, etc. It is time we also learn from Portugal how to deal with drugs. Lisbon is the European capital with the lowest homicide rate.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of “O Vencedor” (The Victor)

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