The Los Angeles Post

Tech giants partner with DEA on anti-opioid efforts

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Silicon Valley giants are partnering with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in its annual effort to combat the opioid epidemic, a campaign known as National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

Throughout the day on Saturday, participants will be able to use Google and Twitter to identify locations to drop off any prescription drugs they have at home, while Facebook runs advertisements about the effort.

The Take Back Day campaign has seen results before, with the DEA reporting last fall that it was able to collect 914,236 pounds of drugs through its campaign encouraging and facilitating drop-offs across the country.

The DEA has been increasing its engagement with tech companies on the issue over the past several years. Twitter in a blog post earlier this week announced that it has re-launched a custom emoji for Take Back Day, an effort to bring attention to the #TakeBackDay hashtag.

Google, meanwhile, has been partnering with the DEA for several years through advertising campaigns and new features in Google Maps. The tech giant featured the Take Back Day collection site map on its homepage last year and announced two months ago that it had improved its Google Maps and search to account for 3,500 more drug drop-off locations across the country.

Using Google Maps or search, users can look up phrases similar to “drug drop off near me” or “medication disposal near me” and find directions to the nearest permanent disposal locations.

The DEA told The Hill that Facebook last fall ran national newsfeed advertising, which garnered 11 million impressions between Facebook and its image-sharing platform, Instagram.

“With additional newsfeed advertising for the April 2019 campaign, we anticipate surpassing this number,” the DEA said in an emailed statement.

Many lawmakers, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Va.), have said tech companies should potentially be held legally liable for illegal opioid sales on their platforms, a move that would chip away at one of the Internet’s most valued legal protections – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.