Social media fuels fentanyl crisis: Drug dealers use platforms to contact minors

Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death among minors over the past five years, even as overall drug use has declined slightly. In a 2022 analysis of prescription drugs laced with fentanyl, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a potentially lethal dose of the drug.

And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be accessed with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and child advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta, which owns Instagram, aren't doing enough to keep children safe.

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

Whatever the dealer gave Coco wasn't Percocet, her mother said. It was a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl, which can be fatal in a dose as small as the tip of a pencil.

Mikayla Brown lost her son Elijah, who was named Eli, in 2023, two weeks after his 15th birthday, to a suspected fentanyl overdose. His father found him unconscious one September morning last year. His cause of death was an accidental fentanyl overdose. But he didn't want to buy fentanyl, he wanted Xanax, and, like Coco, ended up with contaminated pills that killed him.

Immeasurable availability

While it is difficult to obtain data on the frequency of drug sales on social platforms, the National Crime Prevention Council estimates that 80% of deaths from fentanyl poisoning among adolescents and young adults are due to social media contacts.

In a comprehensive 2023 report on the issue, Colorado's Attorney General called the availability of fentanyl and other illegal substances online “staggering.”

“Due to their ubiquity, convenience and lack of regulation, social media platforms have become a major venue for drug trafficking,” the report said. “Where a teenager once had to find a street dealer, harass friends or learn to navigate the dark web to obtain illegal drugs, young people can now track down drug dealers using their smartphones – and with relative ease, by ordering food delivery or calling a ride-share service.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accidental overdoses in the U.S. have declined slightly each year since 2021. Paul DelPonte, executive director and CEO of the National Crime Prevention Council, attributes this in part to increased education and awareness of the problem. Among young people ages 0 to 19, there were 1,622 overdose deaths in 2021, then 1,590 in 2022 and 1,511 last year.

The decline was “very small,” DelPonte said.

Reaction from social media platforms

In a statement, Meta said drug traffickers are “criminals who will stop at nothing to sell their dangerous products. This is a challenge that spans platforms, industries and communities, and to address it, we all need to work together.”

The company added that it is working with law enforcement and has proactively removed 2 million pieces of content in the first three months of 2024, 99.7% before they were reported.

Meta says it blocks and filters “hundreds” of terms associated with the illegal drug trade and links to recovery and substance abuse resources when possible. But drug traffickers and other criminals are constantly changing their strategies and developing new ways to avoid detection.

In a statement, the company said it was “deeply saddened by the fentanyl epidemic and is committed to fighting it.”

“We have invested in advanced technology to detect and remove illegal drug-related content, work closely with law enforcement to bring dealers to justice, and continue to raise awareness and evolve our service to keep our community safe. Criminals have no place on Snapchat,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, the company's Global Head of Platform Safety.

While it can happen on any social media site, experts often single out Snapchat as a particularly dangerous platform, something the company vehemently disagrees with. In October 2022, a group of parents who say their children bought fentanyl from drug dealers they met through Snapchat sued the company for wrongful death and negligence, calling it a “drug trafficking haven.”

Advocates hope that regulating tech companies could help solve the problem, as it could also help with other dangers children face on social media. In July, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill designed to protect children from dangerous online content. It still awaits a vote in the House. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), meanwhile, have introduced a bill that would require social media companies to report illegal activity involving fentanyl, methamphetamine and counterfeit pills on their platforms to law enforcement.

“We must do more at the federal level to combat the influx of fentanyl into our communities. That starts with holding social media companies accountable for their role in facilitating the illegal drug trade,” Shaheen said.