Editorial

We have reached the 37th year of the Health Debate journal reaffirming the satisfaction of our participation in the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and the unquestionable value that the magazine has been deserving in recent years, which may be evidenced by the visible growth of the number of articles submitted to our webpage (www.saudeemdebate.org.br). This number, especially dedicated to the discussion of national policy and the forms of treatment and care in the field of chemical dependency is the result of a combined proposal between CEBES and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

The increase – of visibility at least – of the use of crack cocaine in the country has produced a number of responses, most of them in little reflection and little basis on gathered experience in the country, both in aspects of Psychosocial Care and Harm Reduction. Most municipalities began to clamor for compulsory admission of “junkies”, making us believe that the issue of chemical addiction comes from forced abstinence, of public order, police and prosecution. Indeed, such measures conceal conservative and reactionary proposals with regard to the progress made and built by Brazilian society since the adoption of the Citizen Constitution of 1988. Behind the claims of kidnapping and violation of human rights exists a project of rejection of democratic freedoms and citizenship rights, and many other interests that appeared in order to take advantage of drug policy (churches, real estate, construction, private clinics and many others).

This number comes to contribute to the debate by offering a series of research articles, review and tests that demonstrate the maturation of this field, perhaps disregarded by policymakers who insist on resorting to invasive intervention strategies and ineffective, that meet interests to specific segments and not to users and their families.

The call to this number was so successful - which reflects not only the importance that Saúde em Debate deserves, as announced above, but also, and indeed, the weight that the subject receives currently in the country - that hundreds of articles have been submitted to evaluation. Unable to publish all at once, we commit to publish them in the next numbers, in that they are approved by our revisers of theme.

We hope that readers of Saúde em Debate make good use of the articles posted here, relying on them to have even more instruments for the construction of new practices and arguments with a view to a scenario of solidarity and respect for human rights within the SUS. These are the principles of the National Drugs and Human Rights Front, of which CEBES is a member.

Good reading!

Paulo Amarante

Scientific Editor

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