In defiance of a campaign promise, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva announced that the military will retain control over anti-drug efforts rather than transfer drug enforcement to the justice ministry and incorporate more harm-reduction measures.

President Lula pledged in his presidential campaign last year to embrace a more tolerant, European-style approach to drugs, but his recent decision reneges on the undertaking  by allowing the national anti-drug office (known by its Portuguese acronym SENAD) to remain under the authority of the military. SENAD, born as a result of international pressures, particularly from the United States, has typically been headed by a general and is placed under the authority of the national security cabinet.

"This was a very bad decision," Fabio Mesquite, head of the AIDS prevention program for Sao Paulo state and one of Brazil's leading harm reductionists, told DRCNet.  "It is a sort of accommodation with the military.  This is a very conservative position and it is not in line with [Lula’s Political Party’s] program or Lula's position during the campaign.  Instead, just like former President Cardoso, whose drug policy was very much based on US drug policy, he chose the military."

Already there lies a deep rift within the Lula administration in which progressive harm-reduction advocates remain at odds with hard-liners who favor a more US based approach.  Earlier this year the battle to end the long dark era of the criminalization and marginalization of some drug users in the hemisphere’s second largest drug consuming nation erupted in the highest spheres of the Lula government. The Brazilian National Health Ministry announced its pro-decriminalization stance and released a document entitled "The Health Ministry's Policy for Holistic Attention to Users of Alcohol and Other Drugs" supporting public health over enforcement.  Many in the administration feel that President Lula’s decision will prevent effective and efficient drug policy in Brazil.