Bill to block online fentanyl sales named for Kansas teen

TOPEKA (KSNT) -The nation’s drug crisis is hitting more and more local families. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl is blamed for nearly 70% of all overdose deaths in America.

But despite those numbers, you might be surprised at how technology most of us use every day is also being used by drug dealers right here in Kansas.

Sen. Roger Marshall has made it his mission to end the fentanyl crisis. He’s working to drum up support for a bipartisan bill aimed at stopping drug pushers from reaching victims through social media platforms like Snapchat and Facebook. That bill is named in honor of a Kansas teen.

Cooper Davis was just 16 years old when his family says he and some friends bought two pills through Snapchat. Davis took half of what he though was a Percocet, but instead was a lethal dose of fentanyl. He died of an overdose in 2021.

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According to the CDC, 150 people a day die from fentanyl overdoses in the U.S., just like Cooper. Sen. Marshall says this can't go on. In collaboration with leaders from the White House and fellow senators from both sides of the aisle, last year he introduced the Cooper Davis Act.

The bill would enable social media companies to be more proactive in their cooperation with law enforcement, while making sure they're on the lookout for online drug trafficking.

By using artificial intelligence, Sen. Marshall says social media companies can monitor for certain words or phrases commonly used in drug trafficking, and then pass that information along to law enforcement. While not a complete solution to the fentanyl crisis, Sen. Marshall says this bill may help turn the tables on drug dealers.

"I hope that there's less deaths," Sen. Marshall said. "I hope that we can get to the bad guys. I hope that we find the cartels and the drug pushers, and we prosecute them."

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Sen. Marshall says he is hopeful this legislation will pass because it's modeled after a similar bill President Joe Biden pushed through the legislature in 2008 when he was still a senator. That bill dealt with human trafficking and social media.

Sen. Marshall says the Committee of Jurisdiction is expect to markup this legislation by next week. He says Snapchat and Google have expressed their openness to cooperate and help get this legislation get off the ground and into the hands of those who can make it law.