OPINION:
On Aug. 29, 2021, my 16-year-old son, Cooper Davis, was deceived to death.
Cooper was a fun kid and so full of life. He had an infectious smile that would spread around the room. He was extremely outgoing and never met a stranger. He had a very kind heart, a soft spot for children with special needs, and couldn’t pass by a homeless person without offering something. He loved water! If there was an ocean, lake, river, pond or puddle, this kid was in it no matter how cold it might be.
Cooper was into all the extreme sports: motorcycles, skateboarding, mountain biking, scooter tricks, rock climbing, cliff jumping, snowboardin, and wakeboarding. He was a self-taught natural at everything he tried. There was no such thing as too high or too fast. He was adventurous to a fault and absolutely fearless.
Of course, Cooper was far from perfect. He did not want to fit the mold of a typical teenager. He was resistant to the guardrails, which we as parents tried to keep in place for him. He was very independent from the moment he could walk. He was strong-willed and hardheaded, and a risk-taker. Cooper thought he was invincible.
It was a Sunday afternoon and Cooper was at a friend’s house. We got the call that every parent fears. Shawnee, Kansas, police told us that Cooper was having a medical emergency and we needed to get there as soon as possible. We would learn later that four boys shared two blue pills they believed were prescription Percocet. Three boys lived, but Cooper did not. He had taken half of a fake pill filled with fentanyl.
As a mother doing her due diligence, I used to monitor Cooper’s Snapchat account, and I would see with my own eyes that many drugs that were available in our community. What I did not know is that these dealers are peddling poison to unsuspecting youth. I did not know illicit fentanyl was being used by cartels to press fake pills in the jungles of Mexico. I do know that social media companies have to be accountable for the transactions taking place on their platforms. They cannot be the avenue for the drug sales and distribution that is killing our youth. They need to be a part of the solution instead of an accomplice to these poisonings.
Like any other market, cartels use social media to create a one-stop shop for marketing, selling and delivering illegal, fentanyl-laced pills. And we watch in horror at how this is proving to be a profitable marketing strategy. Unfortunately, some federal agencies don’t have what they need to stop it. The Drug Enforcement Administration — the federal agency responsible for regulating controlled substances — investigated over 80 cases linking victims to social media apps last year. However, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about the more than 200,000 Americans who died from an overdose last year.
The DEA needs better tools to effectively crack down on illegal fentanyl sales and prevent criminals from exploiting social media. The Cooper Davis Act — named after my son and introduced by Sen. Roger Marshall, a physician himself — does just that. It would require all social media companies to take a more proactive role in reporting information on illegal drug sales happening on their platforms. This database will help DEA to intervene before an illegal sale occurs, but they’ll also be able to see the bigger picture. DEA analysts will be able to uncover criminal networks and go after more critical actors.
But this won’t just help the DEA; this legislation will also improve coordination with other federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. Instead of the current patchwork where each company may or may not submit information of varying degrees, we could have a standardized and comprehensive process bound by law. After all, they are already required to do this for child sexual exploitation, which was an effort spearheaded by President Biden when he was a senator. I really hope that senators and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle can support the Cooper Davis Act — fentanyl poisoning can happen to someone they know if we don’t get a handle on this epidemic real quickly.
We will never know exactly why Cooper took half a pill that day. Was he curious and just experimenting? Or was he trying to escape from some sadness for a little bit that day? Regardless, illegal drugs should not be available to our youth on social media. It should not be as easy to obtain drugs as it is to order a pizza. If there is one thing that is for sure, it’s that the Cooper Davis Act will save lives.
• Libby Davis is a resident of Shawnee, Kansas.
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