The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, the country’s lower house, recently approved a sweeping bill that would sentence first-time drug offenders to up to five months of community service instead of arrest and prison. The legislation stresses harm reduction, mandates treatment on demand for drug users, and permits religious uses of drugs. A similar bill before the legislature last year failed to become law.

President Lula da Silva has been criticized for breaking a campaign promise to embrace a more tolerant, European-style drug policy. Pressure on da Silva, which mounted last year when the national health ministry announced that it favored decriminalization, grew again recently after neighbor Venezuela proposed several decriminalization measures.

This latest Brazilian bill would create one unified federal, state, and local body to oversee prevention, education, and drug traffic reduction and another body to manage the dissemination of information on drug use and trafficking. It also contains several tough measures, including drug trafficking penalties, jail time for those who fail to comply with the order of a judge, and asset forfeiture provisions. The bill now moves on to Brazil’s Senate.