How social media is a shop for fake pills when families are struggling

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Fentanyl overdoses have been the leading cause of death for young children for the past five years or so, although overall use of the drug has declined slightly. In a 2022 analysis of fentanyl-laced prescription pills, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a lethal dose of the drug.

And social media, where counterfeit 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 that companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to protect children.

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In 2022, two weeks after turning 17, Coco left her home outside New York City to meet with a dealer she had messaged via Instagram promising to sell Percocet, her mother, Julianna Arnold, recalled recently. He never came home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address the man had given her.

Whatever the dealer gave Coco, her mother said, was not Percocet. These are fake pills laced with fentanyl, which can be deadly in doses as small as the tip of a pencil.

Mikayla Brown lost her son Elijah, who went by Eli, to a suspected fentanyl overdose in 2023, two weeks after his 15th birthday. His father found him unresponsive on a September morning last year. The cause of death was an accidental fentanyl overdose. But he wasn’t trying to buy fentanyl, he was looking for Xanax, and, like Coco, ended up with the pill that killed him.

A few taps away

While data on the prevalence of drug sales on social platforms is hard to come by, the National Crime Prevention Council estimates that 80% of teen and young adult fentanyl poisoning deaths can be traced to some form of social media contact.

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In a 2023 report on the issue, Colorado’s attorney general called the availability of fentanyl and other illegal substances online “surprising.”

“Due to their ubiquity, convenience, and lack of regulation, social media platforms have become the primary venue for drug distribution,” the report said. “While young people had to find street dealers, troubled friends, or learn to navigate the dark web to access illegal drugs, young people can now find drug dealers using their smartphones – as easily as ordering food or calling a ride-share service.”

Accidental overdoses in the U.S. have decreased every year since 2021 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Paul DelPonte, executive director and CEO of the National Crime Prevention Council, sees this as more education and awareness of the problem. Among young people aged 0 to 19, there were 1,622 overdose deaths in 2021, then 1,590 in 2022, and 1,511 last year.

The drop, DelPonte said, was “very small.”

The company responded

In a statement, Meta said drug traffickers “are criminals who do not stop at selling dangerous products. This is a challenge that crosses platforms, industries, and communities, and requires all of us to work together to solve it.

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The company added that it worked with law enforcement and proactively removed 2 million pieces of content, 99.7% of which were previously reported in the first three months of 2024.

Meta says it blocks and filters “hundreds” of terms related to the sale of illegal drugs and links to recovery and substance abuse resources when possible. But drug traffickers and other bad actors are constantly shifting strategies, devising new ways to avoid detection.

Snap, in a statement, said it was “saddened by the fentanyl outbreak and deeply committed to fighting it.”

“We have invested in advanced technology to detect and remove content related to illegal drugs, work hard with law enforcement to help dealers get justice, and continue to raise awareness and evolve our services to keep communities safe. Criminals have no place on Snapchat,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, Head of Global Platform Security at the company.

Lawsuits and regulations

Although it can happen on any social media site, experts often single out Snapchat as a dangerous platform, but the company disagrees. In October 2022, a group of parents who said their children bought fentanyl from a drug dealer they met through Snapchat sued the company for wrongful death and negligence, calling it a “paradise for drug trafficking.”

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Advocates hope that regulation of tech companies can help address the problem, as it can help other dangers children face on social media. In July, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act, legislation designed to protect children from harmful online content. Still waiting for the vote in the DPR. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, DN.H., and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., meanwhile, introduced a bill that would require social media companies to report illegal fentanyl, methamphetamine and counterfeit pill activity occurring on the platform to law enforcement.

“We need to do more at the federal level to combat the flow of fentanyl into our communities, and that starts with holding social media companies accountable for facilitating the sale of illegal drugs,” Shaheen said.

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