The trajectory of mental health policies and alcoholand other drugs in the twentieth century

Abstract

The scope of this article is to analyze the temporal evolution of the rules that comprise the legal framework of public policies on mental health and on alcohol and other drugs between the years 1900 to 2000. The study seeks to analyze the trajectory of the rules to make it possible to understand a little more about the context and the way in which the issues related to these two themes were addressed prior to the Psychiatric Reform in Brazil, in 2001. For this purpose, documentary and bibliographical research was conducted, with the intention of enhancing the understanding of these two policies from a more normative angle. In the skein of legislation, 33 norms were cataloged which, after analysis, reveal the process of construction of the public policies related to the use of alcohol and other drugs, changing the repressive logic of justice and the “pathologization” of drug use and enabling the transition of the discussion from the field of security to that of public health, more specifically of mental health.