Ethnographic Studies Approaching Violence and the Transaction of Illegal Drugs in Montevideo, Uruguay

The present work is a result of a process of ethnographic investigation that took place in three different social locations: the dowtonwn area (with a population conformed by homeless teenagers and young adults); a peripheral suburb location in Montevideo (focusing on consumers of cocaine paste base); and, prison (within a system created for people with no criminal records). The focus of this study discusses the social interrelations and the transactions of illegal drugs. Given the general assumption that the foundation of social interrelations is exchange itself,  the case of an exchange that occurs within an outlawed background will be debated- an illegal market which is necessarily (re)producing violence-; a market that is illegal due to the fact that those merchandises are considered non-legal by national and international normatives. The present investigation was held during the debate that arose in Uruguay on the topic of the legalization of one illicit drug (cannabis), a critical debate to which attention is paid along this work: while the Uruguayan government formulates the regulation of the market of marihuana, it also proposes to implement stricter measures against the traffic and transaction of cocaine paste base. This rationale implies contradictory policies and thus, drug-related social violence is strictly connected to an illegal framework of its transaction than to drug abuse psycological and phisical effects.