Elon Musk reported to Taiwan prosecutors for promoting marijuana use
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been reported to the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office on the accusation of seducing people to use drugs, putting prosecutors in the awkward position of being obliged to investigate the tech billionaire if prosecutors take recent statements of their Ministry of Justice seriously.
The demand for prosecutors to investigate the well-known tech CEO was a response to a statement made by the Ministry of Justice earlier this month that teaching marijuana use on the Internet, “spreading marijuana is harmless theory,” or inducing others to use marijuana, constitutes a crime under the country’s criminal law, regardless of whether the crime is committed inside or outside of the country.
The MOJ made the statement in a press release issued August 9, citing Article 7, Item 2 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act: “Persons guilty of seducing others to use Category two narcotics shall be punished with a minimum one-year to a maximum seven-year fixed-term imprisonment, and may be fined no more than one million New Taiwan dollars.”
Green Party Chairperson Zoe Lee, who is also known as “Taiwan’s Weed Lawyer (better call Zoe), reported Elon Musk to the Taipei District Prosecutor today, saying that according to the Ministry of Justice, Musk, Chairman of the social platform “X” (Twitter) with as many as 140 million followers, has repeatedly and blatantly used marijuana on popular online programs, thus giving Taiwanese the impression that marijuana is harmless, and guiding and tempting people to use the category two narcotic. This constitutes an act of seducing others to to drugs.
The act of filing the complaint, Lee admitted, was to highlight the absurdity of the press release issued by the Ministry of Justice August 9.
Lee accused the MOJ of curbing and limiting freedom of speech and intimidating people not to the discuss the issue of marijuana legalization by expanding the definition of “inducing people to use drugs.” Lee said this was tantamount to restoration of Taiwan’s authoritarian era.
Lee expressed concern for Taiwanese citizens living abroad and working in the legal cannabis industry, or expressing themselves while living in jurisdictions where cannabis use is legal, saying that the statement made by the MOJ may have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech of citizens both at home and abroad.
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