DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said over the weekend that Congress needs to pass some sort of legislation to crack down on social media companies for allegedly not doing enough to stop the sale of fentanyl on their platforms.
Milgram told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press” that social media is what she calls “the last mile.”
“The border’s an important part of this conversation because most of the fentanyl that we see coming into the United States is coming in through the southwest border,” she said. “Social media is also a vital part of the conversation. It is what I call the last mile. Because what the cartels need – they’re selling the deadliest poison we’ve ever seen – they need that to … be able to expand and sell more, they need to be able to reach people at massive rates. And that’s what social media’s doing.”
When asked if social media companies were cooperating with federal law enforcement in trying to fix the problem, Milgram said, “We have not, until recently, gotten nearly as much cooperation as we need.”
“We’ve been in conversations with the social media companies. The Deputy Attorney General convened all of us in April of this year and made it very clear, number one, that the companies have to comply with their own terms of service, which say, ‘This is illegal. You cannot be selling fake pills. You cannot be selling drugs on social media websites’.”
She also said that law enforcement needs to be able to get information from the social media companies.
When asked if there was something the DEA does not have that Congress could give them that would help them address the issue, she said, “So we talk a lot with Congress about social media. We talk a lot about the need for these platforms – essentially, one of the main ways we see Americans dying right now is through social media, the purchase of pills, fake pills on social media. So, again, if we’re after, how do we stop 110,000 Americans from dying?”
She said Congress was “a place to start.”
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