Health care as a democratic practice: actions in drug use settings to analyze democracy in brazil

Abstract

This article articulates democracy, health and health care among vulnerable groups. We use state actions in drug use settings in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro carried out in conjunction with interventions to evict drug users living in districts that have become commercial areas to analyze democracy in Brazil; typical interventions associated with neoliberalism and its legal counterpart, the State of Permanent exception. We understand that government policies based on abstinence and internment of drug addicts are in tune with the so-called war on drugs. We highlight that the approach to the use of psychoactive substances embodied in harm reduction strategies has the potential to increase the capillarity of the guiding principles of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS), Mental Health Reform and, therefore, democracy in socially vulnerable areas.