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Fentanyl from a drug bust by the New York Police Department
Photo: Dreamstime / ZUMA Wire / IMAGO
According to a newspaper report, US authorities are investigating Meta.
Accordingly, the parent company of services such as Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp could be involved in the illegal trade in medicines.
As the "Wall Street Journal" writes, investigators in the southern state of Virginia are investigating to what extent the meta online platforms encourage and profit from the illegal drug trade.
The company told the Wall Street Journal that the sale of unapproved medications violated its own guidelines;
Work is underway to remove relevant content from the platforms.
When asked by the AFP news agency on Saturday, neither Meta nor the US drug regulator involved in the investigation commented on the report.
Opioid epidemic in the USA
Meta manager Nick Clegg announced on Friday that Meta wanted to take part in the fight against the trade in synthetic drugs together with the US State Department, the UN and Snapchat.
The synthetic opioid fentanyl is around 80 times more potent than morphine.
It has led to a massive drug problem in the United States, with tens of thousands dying from fentanyl overdoses every year.
For US citizens between the ages of 18 and 49, analgesic abuse is the leading cause of death.
(Read more about how fentanyl has become America's biggest drug problem here.)
mamk/AFP