The president of Colombia proposes a public health plan to combat drug addiction

MADRID, 27 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has proposed this Monday to bet on a public health plan to combat drug addiction through prevention and treatment measures.

"Instead of criminalization, we must move strongly to the prevention and treatment of drug addiction as a public health disease," said the Colombian president through a series of messages on his profile on the social network Twitter.

Petro has made these statements in response to a video on the effect of fentanyl -- a drug from the opiate family -- in various American communities.

"Fentanyl is the plague of the United States. A drug to evade reality and sleep forever. A drug of people without affection who only expects to die. It is the drama of the competitive society. It is time for great politics of public health that prevents this disease," he stated.

Thus, the Colombian president has criticized US policies regarding the use of drugs, which "instead of mitigating the damage, have been enhanced."

"From the prohibition of marijuana and cocaine, which left us with a million Latin American deaths, the United States went on to the fentanyl plague that kills 100,000 citizens a year," he lamented.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Thus, it is a major contributing factor to both fatal and non-fatal overdoses in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.