A federal government office tasked with warning TikTok users against buying fentanyl-laced drugs faces an obstacle to getting its message out to the public: a congressional ban on government employees using the social media app.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office relies on the nonprofit organization National Crime Prevention Council to reach TikTok users with a warning about the dangers of counterfeit drugs sold on TikTok. The ban, enacted at the end of 2022, makes the partnership all the more important.

“TikTok is a key platform to reach teens and tweens and McGruff the Crime Dog is especially popular with that audience,” NCPC Executive Director Paul DelPonte said. “As a spokesdog, he fits in well with the type of content generated on the platform. Notwithstanding TikTok’s other issues, it is an important place to educate young people about the dangers of fake pills.”

Drug dealers have converted Snapchat, TikTok, and other apps into an online marketplace for counterfeit, Mexican cartel-made fentanyl.

But federal government agencies that would like to warn TikTok users against using the platform to purchase fake and possibly deadly versions of prescription drugs Percocet, oxycodone, and Xanax are limited in what they can do themselves due to a ban based on national security concerns. TikTok is owned by the Chinese-based company ByteDance.

NCPC and PTO teamed up in 2019 on a public awareness campaign to teach children and teenagers about counterfeit products available for sale on social media.

That campaign has shifted in recent years to increasingly focus on fake drugs being made south of the border and moved into the United States. Fentanyl is the No. 1 cause of death in U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 45, surpassing car crashes, heart attacks, and suicide.

“The National Crime Prevention Council utilizes a variety of social media platforms to help educate the public on a range of issues aimed at keeping people safe,” DelPonte wrote in an email Tuesday. “Awareness around lethal doses of fentanyl in fake pills is a major part of those efforts.”

NCPC is preparing to debut a new public advertisement that focuses entirely on fentanyl being sold online.

An ideal next step forward for DelPonte would be getting social media companies to share internal data that can shed light on the impact their ad campaigns have had on preventing users from buying drugs on these apps.

“Unfortunately, social media companies have not supplied audited third-party data that would provide statistics on this and other illegal activity,” DelPonte said. “NCPC supports legislation that would require such reporting.”

This article was originally published on April 3rd, 2024 via https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/2950150/biden-administration-works-around-tiktok-ban-warn-fentanyl-laced-drugs/#google_vignette