Perception of basic education students about drugs: a look at the light of Merleau-Ponty. / Percepção de estudantes da educação básica sobre drogas: um olhar à luz de Merleau-Ponty.

OBJECTIVE: Unveil the perception of students from basic education about drugs. METHODS: Phenomenological study based on Maurice Merleau-Ponyt, conducted with 14 students of a school in Bahia, Brazil, through the Focus Group, in the months of April to June of 2013. The reports have been analyzed based on the Ambiguity Analytics technique. RESULTS: They have been presented in the form of three categories: common sense and scientific knowledge occupy opposite locus; drug addicts; the good and evil of legal and illegal drugs. CONCLUSIONS: The students' perception of drugs intertwined with scientific knowledge and at the same time placing it at the center of the phenomenon, separating the lawful as good and illicit as bad, which points to the need for socio-educational measures among educators, students and family members, aimed at the decentralization of the drug place in the context in which the phenomenon happens so that we understand the complexity involved in the theme.