“Mark Zuckerberg Is Surprised At The Extent Of The Opioid Problem”

In the News (CNBC): “Mark Zuckerberg is surprised at the extent of the opioid problem — but Facebook is full of illegal opioid marketing. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the scope of the opioid crisis was what surprised him most during his 2017 travels throughout the country.

“But all he had to do was look at Facebook to see how pervasive the marketing is for these powerful and addictive pain medications.

“Sellers here and overseas are using Facebook pages and videos to offer drugs that U.S. laws say require a prescription, CNBC has found.

“Searching on Facebook for the names of some of the most commonly prescribed pain medications pointed to multiple vendors selling Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Percocet and other similar drugs.

“This illicit marketing persists three months after NBC News highlighted the problem, and weeks after President Donald Trump declared opioid addiction a public health emergency.”

My Comment: If Mark Zuckerberg is worried about opioids, he shouldn’t just do better to police his site. 

As I’ve recently written in my article “The Solution to the Opioid Crisis Is More Opioids—of the Natural Kind,” the craving for opiates represents the craving for human connection. And the opioid crisis tells us exactly what we need to change in our society.

As director of the world’s largest social network, Zuckerberg could do a lot to facilitate positive human connections on a massive scale via the virtual world, as I’ve detailed in my September 27, 2017 open letter to him “How Facebook Can Actually ‘Bring the World Closer Together.'”
#opioid #crisis