“It is social, yes, but it is also an enterprise”

the development of the social world of Cannabis in Teresina

Abstract

The economy of medicinal cannabis in Teresina structures itself swiftly and noticeably since the last 7 years. The adoption of two bills (one by the State’s jurisdiction, another one by the Municipality of the State’s Capital District) in 2023, which regulate the supply of medicine derived from cannabis via SUS, “coincided” with the officialization of some new cannabic enterprises, adding itselves amongst two other forerunner ones, founded in 2017. The following article, resuming a discussion previously presented in Brito (2023), seeks to keep following the investment of analysing the “social world of Cannabis” in Teresina. It consists of an ethnography that intends to investigate a new cannabic enterprise, namely, ATC, founded in 2024, by reaching from the insertion of the researchers into the network formed by the production, circulation and consumption circuit. This enterprise seems to present a synthesis between the political and moral propositions asserted by the two forerunner cannabic enterprises, as it keeps in its mission, simultaneously, aspects of social consideration and profit generation, instances that were previously apart from each other with clear borders.