In February, the President’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) invited Concerned Women for America (CWA) to participate in a White House Roundtable Discussion on combating illicit drug trafficking on social media. To kick off the meeting, “angel mom” Anne Fundner shared her son’s story: In 2022, 15-year-old Weston ordered what he thought was Adderall online. The pill was laced with fentanyl, and Weston died of an overdose. With tears, Anne said that when her son died, her family died, too.
The roundtable set out to affirm that President Trump’s ONDCP would use every resource at its disposal—an “all-of-America” approach including federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, international partners, and corporations—to ensure that no mother faces what Anne Fundner faced.
Long before the advent of social media, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was established by Congress under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 with a charge to oversee “creating, implementing, and evaluating U.S. drug control policies to reduce the use, manufacturing, and trafficking of illicit drugs, as well as drug-related health consequences, crime, and violence.” The Director of the ONDCP, also known as the “Drug Czar,” is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate.
President Trump’s Drug Czar, Director Sara Carter, is uniquely positioned to accomplish the President’s objectives with a coordinated “all-of-government” approach—operating directly out of the White House, the ONDCP is a central node between nineteen federal agencies like the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Under President Trump, the ONDCP is supporting traditional drug-busting operations at unprecedented rates—just days ago, the office executed a drug bust in Sacramento alongside the DEA, seizing over 1,500 pounds of meth and arresting a Sinaloa cartel fugitive from the Terrorist Watch List. The Director has also advanced cooperation with key international partners like Mexico and El Salvador to secure the United States border with respect to drug trafficking.
Director Carter’s all-of-America approach to ending illicit drug trafficking entails more than Narcos-style drug busts, however—she is taking on the quiet, less obvious avenues for trafficking, too: the internet, social media platforms, and the mail. As evidenced by Anne Fundner’s tragic testimony, predators and drug traffickers in the digital age have taken their enterprise to social media platforms. From chatrooms to doorsteps, cartels now deliver mail-order drugs directly to children and teens behind their parents’ backs.
This lesser-known battleground in the President’s fight to protect American families from drug trafficking was the subject of February’s roundtable discussion. With a sense of urgency, federal agency heads challenged representatives from YouTube, X, Meta, and TikTok to commit to working with the ONDCP to strengthen protections for children and give parents the tools they need to protect them. Each company representative offered full compliance with the ONDCP’s efforts.
Director Carter’s commitment to the ONDCP’s work is a matter of deep conviction. In a statement ahead of the roundtable, she stated, “Throughout my career, I have spoken to countless families who lost a child or loved one to drugs purchased on social media. In many of the cases, the victim thought they were purchasing a safe pill, which actually contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.” Director Carter is also urging vigilance to parents. She continued, “Parents need to educate our children about the dangers of drugs and monitor their social media use to protect them from those who seek to do irreparable harm.”
After four years of reckless open border policies under the Biden Administration, nothing less than Director Carter’s all-of-America approach is owed to American communities, families, and children. In Weston’s memory, and for the sake of moms like Anne across the country, the ONDCP is fighting a quiet but consequential battle to end illicit drug trafficking on social media platforms.
