Elon Musk wants to legalize fentanyl

Twitter CEO Elon Musk believes the powerful opioid fentanyl should be legalized. Musk feels that the current approach is failing and the opioid crisis continues, resulting in addiction and deaths.

Musk described witnessing public drug use while on his way to Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. The tech tycoon thinks it's worth making a regulated supply of drugs available. He compared the spread of fentanyl to the number of alcohol deaths that followed the prohibition movement in the 20s. “The prohibition of alcohol in the United States caused the largest increase in organized crime in our history. How many times do we have to learn this lesson!?” Musk tweeted.

Drug deaths from fentanyl

Fentanyl, an opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, is responsible for 2.000 deaths in San Francisco since 2020. Proponents of drug legalization and regulation argue that it would reduce overdose deaths and crime. Critics argue that regulation would normalize use and not curb criminal organizations.

San Francisco City Hall leaders have spoken out about new policies, though attempts to create facilities for supervised drug use in the city have run into legal trouble. Withdrawal drugs such as buprenorphine and methadone are already legal in the US when prescribed for opioid addiction. Both proponents and opponents of the drug policy have spoken positively about treatment with these drugs.

Danger to public health

De synthetic pain reliever is a big problem. Some are made in the US, but are also illegally marketed from Asia and Mexico. In other countries too, fentanyl is a threat to health and people are sounding the alarm.
Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at Radboud University Arnt Schellekens says that the use of opiates is now the major public health problem in the US. “Almost 200 people die from it every day. Most of them use fentanyl.” Every year, about 50.000 to 60.000 people die from fentanyl use, says Professor Pieters in figures from 2021.

However, experts believe that the actual number of people who die from fentanyl use is much higher. “Many people die without being tested for opiate overdose,” says Professor Schellekens.

source: oa sfstandard.com (EN)