Open Arms Program: An Innovative Approach for an Open-Air Illicit Drug Market in Central São Paulo

The article will present the ‘Bracos Abertos’ (Open Arms) program, a multidisciplinary urban policy in Sao Paulo, Brazil, created as a novel, harm reduction-based response to an open-air drug market in order to draw general lessons to urban drug policies. Firstly, it will describe the characteristics of this open-air drug market pejoratively known as ‘Cracolândia’ (Crackland), and of its dwellers, most of them with a lifelong trajectory of social exclusion. They lived under the violent rule of both police and the powerful criminal organization which controls drug supply. It will also address the failed mano dura approaches implemented by different administrations. The second section will describe the principles that underpinned the design of the program, which brought a major change in policy goals and its evaluation metrics: from ‘cleaning the area from the unwanted’ to ‘improving people’s living conditions.’ This new focus aimed at building trust between public services and their beneficiaries with a low-threshold approach and from it derived the program’s three major pillars: (i) housing, (ii) protected employment, and (iii) connection with existing health and social assistance services in the ground. It will also present the main implementation hardships and the delicate balance with the politically opposed State administration, which controlled the police forces. Thirdly, it will present the main results from the three-year program (2014–2016), from addressing basic illnesses to reducing street crime in the region. The article will also discuss the political conditions that led to the dismantling of ‘Bracos Abertos’ by the succeeding administration, and its legacy as a non-violent, trust-building policy in a problematic urban space. Finally, it will conclude by presenting general lessons regarding policy responses to urban drug-use scenes and open-air markets that can be drawn from the experience.