Photo Credit: pexels.com
These days, it seems like social media gets the blame for just about everything. The list of negative mental, emotional, psychological, and even physical side-effects that can be blamed on social media continues to expand. And now you can add one more negative side-effect: the nation’s fentanyl crisis.
That’s right, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram recently blamed social media for the expanding scope and scale of the nation’s drug crisis. It started with the opioid crisis, says Milgram, and has continued with the fentanyl crisis. In both cases, social media made it easier to find new buyers, organize drug deals, and recruit new “mules” to carry drugs across the Mexican border. She even thinks that social media is to blame for the Mexican cartels being able to organize themselves much more efficiently.
Does social media fuel the drug crisis?
There’s obviously a lot to unpack here, especially given how polarizing the debate over our nation’s border with Mexico has become. Chances are, if you talk to most people in Washington, D.C. these days, they aren’t blaming social media for the drug crisis.Instead, they are blaming ill-considered federal government policies, and a lack of serious willpower to take decisive action.
How can a nation have a policy of letting anybody through the border without any vetting whatsoever? What about the lack of political will to build a border wall? Or the lack of funding for the DEA? Or the policies that leave local police incapable of taking remedial action once someone has crossed the border? Surely, these factors are more to blame for the fentanyl crisis than social media.
That being said, social media is certainly helping to facilitate the drug trade. For example, using encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, it’s now possible for two parties to come together for a drug deal without any risk of that communication being intercepted by the authorities. And, by posting photos and videos on a constantly rotating set of Instagram and TikTok accounts, it’s possible for drug dealers to advertise what’s for sale. This is now done so cleverly that even the best-intentioned, AI-powered algorithms are helpless at stopping this from occurring.
Who can stop the fentanyl crisis?
It’s easy to understand why the DEA is so eager to blame social media. It’s almost like they are saying: “Hey, it’s not us to blame… It’s those evil social media companies in Silicon Valley.” Given that companies like Meta and TikTok are such easy targets, blaming social media companies is an incredibly easy thing to do.
At the end of the day, it comes down to whether you think the drug crisis is a “demand side” problem or a “supply side” problem. In other words, who is more to blame: the American drug addicts on the U.S. side of the border, or the Mexican cartels on the Mexican side of the border?
If you ask me, it’s a lot easier to make this a demand side problem, and villainize all the young American social media users who can now get painkillers, opioids, and fentanyl on demand. That’s a lot easier than hiring an army and trying to take out the cartels, like they do in the Hollywood movie “Sicario.”
This is not to give the big social media companies a free pass. If people are buying and selling drugs on their platforms, then these companies have a legal, ethical, and moral responsibility to take action. Right now, these social media companies say they are taking steps to combat it.
Obviously, these steps are not strong enough, if the head of the DEA is calling them out for it. Going forward, let’s hold their feet to the fire and make sure they follow through on their promises, because the nation’s drug crisis has to end, no matter who is to blame.
