“Unscrupulous and Morally Ill-Prepared” Laymen or Professionals? Controlling Pharmacists during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship

Abstract

This article traces the transformation of the system of control and repression of Brazilian pharmaceutical activities between the 1930s and the 1970s, through a Foucauldian framework of “differential management of illegalisms.” The period between 1930 and 1960 can be understood as a process of negotiation between pharmacists and state agencies that achieved a compromise on the differential management of illegalisms in relation to drugs, with a clear distinction between “laymen” and “professionals.” This compromise came into question during the dictatorship, due to institutional transformations that reinforced the autonomy of institutions of repression and a military struggle against subversion and corruption. Pharmacists and laymen alike were considered potential suspects. This suspicion even extended to the civilian agencies that were at the core of the regulation of the licit drug market. These developments profoundly changed the way illegalisms committed by professionals and state officials were treated, blurring the boundaries that had been established between laymen, professionals, inspectors, and industrialists. The final section of the article focuses on the various ways in which institutions of repression focused on pharmacists and state regulatory control agencies as potential places of subversive activity or corruption.