“Every American in our country is at risk of this,” Green said at a DC-area CPAC meeting to discuss the opioid crisis. “You take a dollar that has fentanyl in it and you’re dead.”
Claims of accidental fatal contact with synthetic opioids have been debunked and dismissed as myths.
The notion was also fact-checked by the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, which concluded: “It’s impossible to overdose by touching a dollar bill filled with fentanyl.”
In Green’s home state, a woman claimed to have overdosed on fentanyl by taking a dollar bill at a Nashville McDonald’s last summer. But the anecdote proved highly suspect, fact-checking site Snopes wrote.
“The risk of significant fentanyl exposure through skin contact is very low,” said Dr. Todd Korthuis, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, told Snopes. “It is important to correct this widespread myth.”