OMAHA, Neb. – It’s becoming an all-too-common story: A young person buys a pill via social media that turns out to be fentanyl. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Omaha Field Division is now urging parents to talk with their children about the threat of drug dealers using social media to reach young people.
Laura Didier’s 17-year-old son, Zach, was experimenting with pills when he made what became a deadly mistake.
“He purchased what he thought was a Percocet pill through a seller he interacted with on Snapchat,” Didier said.
The pill was counterfeit and contained fentanyl.
Sammy Chapman’s story is similar. A drug dealer reached out to the 16-year-old through Snapchat and delivered a fatal dose of fentanyl to his home in Los Angeles.
“The dealer reached out with a colorful menu of drug choices, and it turns out that the drugs our son ordered and had delivered to our home like a pizza were not the drugs he ordered. It was just fentanyl,” Sammy’s father, Sam Chapman, said.
Chapman and Didier are among several parents who have shared their stories on the Grieving Out Loud podcast after losing their children to fentanyl poisoning involving drugs purchased through social media.
The DEA Omaha Field Division is encouraging parents and caregivers to have conversations with their teens about the risks, particularly as smartphones and social media have become part of everyday life for young people. The DEA estimates that about 95% of American teens ages 13 to 17 have access to a smartphone.
“Social media is just another avenue that drug dealers are using to push counterfeit pills and other poisons to a new generation,” DEA Omaha Field Division Special Agent in Charge Dustin Gillespie said. “Sit down as a family. Talk about the fact that pills sold online may claim to be one thing, when often, they’re laced with deadly doses of fentanyl. Stay on top of your kids’ phone. It’s not bad parenting; it’s a potentially life-saving measure.”
The DEA says drug dealers often use social media posts and disappearing stories, along with code words and emojis, to connect with potential buyers. Conversations can then move to encrypted messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram.
Payments can be made through apps including Venmo, Zelle and Cash App, and drugs can be delivered directly to a buyer’s home.
The DEA recently released a series of short videos called to help parents and caregivers recognize the warning signs and better understand how drug trafficking is occurring on social media.
The threat comes as DEA agents continue to seize large amounts of fentanyl across the five states covered by the Omaha Field Division: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Agents seized more than 67,000 fentanyl pills during the first seven months of 2026. While pill seizures are down from previous years, fentanyl powder seizures have increased nearly 87% compared with the same period last year.
Combined, the fentanyl pill and powder seizures represent more than 4 million potentially deadly doses removed from communities across the five-state region, according to the DEA.
For parents like Chapman and Didier, sharing their experiences is about trying to keep other families from experiencing the same loss.
“To raise awareness, to combat that stigma, to say, ‘You know what? It’s happening to families that you’re on the sidelines with at the soccer game. It’s happening to families whose child is at college on a scholarship,’” Didier said.
