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September 21, 2024In 2022, two weeks after she turned 17, Coco left home just outside New York City to meet with a dealer she’d messaged through Instagram who promised to sell her Percocet. She never made it home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address that the guy had provided her. Whatever the dealer gave Coco, her mother said, was not Percocet. It was a fake pill laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years or so, even as overall drug use has dropped slightly. And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and children’s advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram
and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to keep children safe. The stories of these victims often play out similarly: The kids hear you can get pills on social media. A few taps later and then a package arrives. They retreat to the sanctity of their bedroom and take a pill. Fifteen minutes later, they’re dead. No one even knows until the next morning. The National Crime Prevention Council estimates 80% of teen and young adult fentanyl poisoning deaths can be traced to some social media contact. A 2023 report on the problem in Colorado stated that: “Due to their ubiquity, convenience, and lack of regulation, social media platforms have become a major venue for drug distribution,”. “Where once a teen might have had to seek out a street dealer, hassle friends, or learn to navigate the dark web to access illicit drugs, young people can now locate drug dealers using their smartphones — with the relative ease of ordering food delivery or calling a ride-share service.” Two U.S. Senators have introduced a bill that would require social media companies to report illicit fentanyl, methamphetamine and fake pill activity occurring on their platforms to law enforcement. One says: “We must do more at the federal level to combat the flow of fentanyl into our communities, and it starts by holding social media companies accountable for their part in facilitating illicit drug sales.". Let's be aware of what our children and grandchildren are doing online. Here's the link: Dealers' paradise? How social media became a storefront for deadly fake pills | AP News