Pharmaceutical industry and social media contributed to the fentanyl crisis | 60 Minutes

According to Sherri Hobson, a former assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry played a role in the outbreak of the current fentanyl crisis in the United States.

For years, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry relied on legal opioids until the U.S. government and state attorneys general cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry. The legal supply of opioids dried up, but demand from drug-addicted Americans remained. According to Hobson, Mexican cartels began producing fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, to fill the gap for people addicted to painkillers.

“It's very strange when you consider that the pharmaceutical industry essentially paved the way for the Mexican cartels to enter the market and gain dominance,” Hobson said.

From legal opioids to deadly fentanyl

The pharmaceutical industry has been marketing oxycodone, hydrocodone and other painkillers for decades, Hobson said, and millions of people have become dependent on them.

“The public was outraged that the pharmaceutical industry would do this,” Hobson said. “That they lied that the drug was not addictive when it was highly addictive.”

The US government cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry and many companies were sued by affected communities.

Hobson, who retired in 2020, became very familiar with the Mexican cartels during her 30 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego. She said the cartels' entry into the fentanyl market was entirely predictable.

“Cartels are very business-oriented. They are looking for profit,” Hobson said. “They seek eternal power. They are institutionalized.”

Social media fuels the crisis

Anne Milgram, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, agrees that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry bears much of the blame for the outbreak of the crisis.

“The opioid epidemic definitely marked the beginning of this trajectory that we are on now,” Milgram said.

But she says social media is fueling the fentanyl crisis today. Cartels are using social media to organize, to find people smuggling the drugs across the border from Mexico, and to advertise and sell the drugs.

“Whether it’s Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok, drugs are being sold there every day,” Milgram said.

Social media companies have made numerous statements promising to take action to combat this problem.