Transcript: DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on "Face the Nation"
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The following is a transcript of an interview with DEA Administrator Anne Milgram that aired Sunday, December 19, 2021, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: We now turn to the growing opioid crisis, and we want to welcome to the program Anne Milgram, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Good morning to you.
DEA ADMINISTRATOR ANNE MILGRAM: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why is it so hard to cut off the flow of fentanyl, which is the drug that seems to be fueling these overdoses?
MILGRAM: Fentanyl is a different drug threat than we've seen before. It's synthetic, meaning that it's manmade. It's made of chemicals. Right now, those chemicals are largely sourced from China. They're going to the Mexican criminal drug cartels that are then mass producing, often at an industrial scale fentanyl. Fentanyl- tiny, tiny amounts can be deadly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are people seeking it out as a drug, or is it just something that they're surprised is mixed into the drugs they're seeking?
MILGRAM: The cartels are mass producing these pills in Mexico, mostly, and they're making them look like they're real oxycodone, like they're real hydrocodone, Percocet, Adderall, and then they're bringing them flooding them into the United States and falsely advertised them, marketing them as though they were real pharmaceuticals. So you have a teen on Snapchat and an older American who's looking for pain medicine that they might be able to get cheaper online. And they're finding these pills- Americans believe that they're getting the actual pharmaceutical pill. They're not, what they're getting is fentanyl. And that is why we're seeing 100,000 overdose deaths this year. Sixty-four thousand of those are attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
MARGARET BRENNAN: President Biden signed two executive orders to fight drug trafficking, and it allowed for a crackdown on fentanyl producers, particularly in China. What tools does this give you now? I mean, how do you get Beijing to hand over the bad guys?
MILGRAM: There are hundreds of thousands of unregulated chemical companies in China that are sending these drugs, these precursor chemicals that can be made into fentanyl. Those chemical companies are advertising, you can use this to make fentanyl. So we know what they're doing. China knows what they're doing. They need to do more. What the president's executive order does is it gives us new tools, particularly around illicit finance. One of the things that drives drug trafficking worldwide is money laundering, taking those profits and laundering them through different means. We see a lot of that illicit finance happening both in China and in Mexico. The other EO by the president set up an organization across government focused on transnational organized crime, that is narcotics trafficking.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The social media companies, you have said, are very much a conduit, Tik Tok, Snapchat. How- are people seeking out these drugs intentionally on these social media platforms? And what are you doing to get the companies to crack down?
MILGRAM: Drug traffickers are harnessing social media because it is accessible, they're able to access millions of Americans and it is anonymous and they're able to sell these fake pills and to lie on those social media sites about that. So we know every single day across America that drugs are being sold on these social media sites Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook. When you go on your smartphone, wherever you are, Those traffickers are there too. And the minute you open up one of those social media apps, they're there and they're waiting. They want to make it one click to get drugs into people's hands. We know what's happening, and so do the social media companies. In our takedown, 76 of our cases are directly linked to social media websites where there is extensive narcotics trafficking happening.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you're building a case against the social media companies?
MILGRAM: We've built a case against the- at this moment, the criminal drug networks. And we've drawn that line between the Mexican criminal cartels that are mass producing illicit fentanyl and making these fake pills and pouring it into the United States. What we're doing is investigating. We want to understand everything about how this is happening. And of course, the social media companies need to do more.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So what would you tell parents who are listening at home terrified at what you're describing? What can they actually do?
MILGRAM: Well, they need to sit and talk with their kids. The research is clear that when parents talk to children, drug use goes down in half. And we know that there are kids who don't understand these risks. We know that there are older Americans as well. This is a new threat, so people shouldn't be expected to know it. We need to help people understand. One pill can kill. The only medicine that they should take is what's prescribed to them personally and filled at a local pharmacy. And also, the other piece of this is what we see dealers and- and drug trafficking networks doing now, is that they're lacing other drugs with fentanyl. They're lacing cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, even- there was a case recently in Connecticut with marijuana being laced with fentanyl. So, no drugs are safe right now because fentanyl is being put into those drugs because it's highly addictive.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But then they're killing their customers unintentionally–
MILGRAM: They're killing their customers–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why isn't interdiction working?
MILGRAM: It is working in one sense, which is that, we've taken off 20 million fake pills this year. We estimate at the DEA lab that four in 10 of those pills are potentially deadly. We've taken off 15,000 pounds of fentanyl this year. That is enough potentially lethal doses to kill every single American. We're focused on tracking those overdose deaths and working back to understand the full network from Mexico to Main Street that is causing harm and is killing Americans. It's not enough for us to do one drug trafficker here and there. We have to be targeted at the entire network, so that we can take them down.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What is the current Mexican government doing when you ask them to help you?
MILGRAM: We have to do more than we've ever done before, and so does Mexico, and so does China.The administration has a new high level security dialogue with Mexico. And my message to all of our partners is that the DEA is standing up to do more to protect American communities.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Where do you fit into the migration crisis right now? I mean, is- is stopping the flow of drugs a required step to stop the flow of people as well? If it's the cartels who are behind both?
MILGRAM: The cartels will do anything to get drugs in, in every way you can imagine. Yes, we see that coming through the border. We see it coming through ports, through airplanes, through freight services, through parcel delivery services. Fentanyl, tiny quantities are deadly and extremely potent and addictive. So it's not in years past where someone would have to bring kilos upon kilos into the United States. It is almost miniscule quantities right now. So the threat has changed enormously.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Anne Milgram, thank you for your time today. We'll be back in a moment.
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