While fentanyl continues to flow over the open southern border, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram is blaming the crisis on social media companies.
During an appearance on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Milgram demanded that Congress pass legislation to crack down on social media companies — claiming that they have not done enough to stop the sale of fentanyl on their platforms. Rather than focusing on securing the border to stop the flow of illegal drugs, Milgram is focused on blaming social media platforms for the distribution of fentanyl that the Biden administration allowed to enter the country.
• Thousands of fentanyl deaths
• A human trafficking crisis
• More money in the hands of cartelsBiden’s border policies have proven to be a complete disaster for our country.https://t.co/XHtWmk9RGB
— Congressman Michael Cloud (@RepCloudTX) June 27, 2023
Speaking with NBC host Chuck Todd, the DEA administrator deemed social media “the last mile” — though she did admit that the majority of the fentanyl being smuggled into the U.S. was coming through the southern border.
“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,” Milgram said. “Social media is also a vital part of the conversation — it is what I call the last mile.”
She went on to state that the fentanyl being sold by Mexican drug cartels is “the deadliest poison we’ve ever seen” — noting that the cartels’ mission is 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.”
Milgram was then asked whether social media companies were cooperating with federal law enforcement to help solve the problem, but she claimed that “until recently” there has not been “nearly as much cooperation as we need.”
“We’ve been in conversations with the social media companies,” she added. “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.’”
Milgram argued that it was necessary for law enforcement to be able to obtain information from social media companies. She was then asked whether there was something that Congress could do to give the DEA more authority to deal with the issue.
“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 asked, adding that Congress was “a place to start.”
