Mexican drug cartels use social media to commercialize fentanyl in the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration (DEA) warned today.
Following drug seizures, the agency has identified that drug traffickers used applications such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube.
“These groups are taking advantage of social media platforms to bring fentanyl drugs and fake prescription pills into American homes. with one click on a smartphone“the DEA said in a statement.
He added that he detected a direct link between overdose deaths with fentanyl in the United States and criminal drug networks in Mexico.
Anne Milgram, administrator of the DEA, announced the results of a public security operation carried out between September 29 and December 14 of this year, focused on “criminal drug networks that are taking advantage of the anonymity and accessibility of the social media applications to introduce deadly drugs into American communities. “
At a press conference, he explained that the agency seized more than 6,803 kilos of fentanyl This year alone, enough to kill every American. More than 20 million counterfeit pills, made to look like drugs like Xanax, Adderall, and Oxycontin, were also seized. According to the official, the pills are made in Mexico by drug cartels that use chemicals from China.
Anne Milgram said that social media companies are not doing enough to block ads for fake pills. AFP / B. Smialowski
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The seized fentanyl was directly implicated in at least 46 overdoses and 39 overdose deaths, according to the DEA statement. At least in 76 cases, drug traffickers used social media applications, including Snapchat, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube; 32 cases were related to major Mexican drug trafficking networks that are producing and distributing massive amounts of fentanyl.
These criminal groups, Migram explained, “are taking advantage of the perfect tool to deliver the drug: the social media applications that are available on every smartphone in the United States.” In doing so, they are also reaching all age groups: “A teenager ordering a pill online; a college student trying a friend’s pill; an older neighbor looking for a drug online.”
And the companies that control social networks, he lamented, they are not doing enough to block fake pill ads. “The ease with which traffickers can operate on social media and other popular smartphone apps is fueling our nation’s unprecedented overdose epidemic.”
Fake Pill Safety Alert
In the statement, the DEA recalled that in September it issued its first Public Safety Alert in six years to warn people about the alarming increase in the availability and lethality of counterfeit prescription pills in the United States, which often contain deadly doses of fentanyl.
According to the institution, four out of 10 counterfeit prescription pills tested contain at least 2 milligrams fentanyl, one lethal dose.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in the last year; of that figure, in 75 thousand cases there were opioids -mainly fentanyl- involved.
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