Obtaining illegal pills is as easy as ordering food delivery through the app, DEA administrator tells Congress

(WASHINGTON) – Obtaining illegal pills is as easy as ordering food delivery through an app, the Drug Enforcement Administration warned Congress Tuesday.

“We keep saying that the most dangerous place in the world right now is our home, because everyone has a smartphone, and within two or three … clicks on a smartphone, people are getting pills delivered to their door, like Uber Eats, like they’re getting pizza delivered,” he said. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday.

“We are currently losing 22 Americans every week, teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18” to illicit drug use, Milgram said. “So this is a national tragedy.”

Milgram also noted that the DEA has been waiting for almost a year for one of their work visas to be approved by the Mexican government so that they can send personnel into the country to investigate the drug cartels running the illegal operations and sending illegal pills. to the US

“We’ve been waiting eight months for one visa, and we know the cost of what that means for us in terms of our ability to get work done,” Milgram told the subcommittee. “Every year we lose more than 100,000 Americans in the United States. So time is of the essence, and I cannot say with enough urgency how important it is for us to get those thirteen agents and intelligence analysts into the country.”

The visas would make it easier for DEA agents and analysts investigating drug cartels, she said.

“The men and women of DEA are working non-stop to defeat these cartels,” she said. “And we shouldn’t ask them to work under difficult conditions, but they do and they are incredibly effective.”

Milgram said the DEA currently has 2,000 active investigations into the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, including money laundering investigations and chemical precursor investigations.

Seven out of 10 illegally manufactured pills contain some form of fentanyl, which kills thousands of Americans every year, Milgram said. She also noted that the DEA seized 79 million counterfeit pills and 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder last year.

Milgram asked Congress for more money so the DEA can invest in more resources to prevent illegal drugs from entering the US

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