← Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
From Grief to Advocacy: A Mother's Fight Against Snapchat
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- [00:04]
A
Hello, I'm Delaney Rustin, primary care physician creator with Lisa Tabb of the four Screenagers movies. And this is Parenting in the Screen Age, a podcast about discovering the best ways to help our youth and ourselves navigate our rapidly changing digital world. Today's episode tells the heartbreaking story of 14 year old Alexander Neville, who. Who died after taking a pill he believed was OxyContin. But instead it was a counterfeit pill and was laced with Fentanyl. Alex got the pill from a dealer on Snapchat. I speak with Amy Neville, Alex's mom, about her son and what happened surrounding his death. We discuss all the ways she's been turning her grief into action, including raising awareness about how easily youth can access deadly drugs. Online, Amy shares powerful insights from her many conversations with teens about what's really happening on social media and the deeper realities of the current drug crisis. We also discuss the protests and legal battles she's taken on to push tech companies such as Snapchat towards stronger accountability and action. Finally, the episode explores ways parents and teens can get involved, helping to raise awareness and prevent tragedies like the one that took Alex's life. Let's get started.
- [01:31]
B
Alex, by all accounts was a pretty typical 14 year old, anxious about high school starting in the fall, skateboarding every day. He was an entrepreneur. He was selling off his childhood toys via ebay and was really good at it, was really organized. Like if he put half of that into school, he would have excelled at school. But he was one of those kiddos that, you know, if I can pass a test with an A, why do I have to do my homework and that? I mean that started very early in elementary school. But like I said, Alex was curious about the world around him. Very experimental by nature, whether it be a skateboard trick or a funky exotic food. And unfortunately, I think part of that curiosity coupled with being vulnerable 14 year old kid that wants to be cool and treated more grown up. He was easily taken advantage of by a drug dealer on Snapchat.
- [02:22]
C
So ultimately, what?
- [02:25]
B
So Alex had this funky few days in June of 2020 and I knew something was up and I went to him and I'm like, okay, dude, like what is going on? I even asked him if he was using drugs and he was like, no, mom, I was up late, I ate something bad. And of course he's 14, barely 14, height of puberty. So mood swings for him were totally in line. And so I let it go that day, but. But it was maybe a day and a half later he came back to his dad and I. And he said, okay, I gotta talk to you guys. And we sat down at the kitchen table, and he proceeded to pour his heart out to us about lots of things. But the three key things that came out of that conversation was I wanted to experiment with oxy. I got it from a dealer on Snapchat. It has a hold on me, and I don't know why. And so we did what any parent would do that following morning. Cause it was late in the evening when we had this conversation on a Sunday. And the following morning, I made the call to a treatment to see what we could do to get him in. And they needed to call me back with their recommendation. That day we went about our normal business. Alex got his hair cut. He went out to lunch with his dad, went and bought a bunch of candy, played video games, skateboarded, delivered ebay packages, all the usual things. Went and hung out with some friends later in the day, because as far as we were all concerned, he was going away later in the week and would be gone for at least 30 days. And that night, he came home, we said, good night. We love you. And that was the last time we saw him alive. I. I went to wake him the following morning for an orthodontist appointment, and there he was. Death blindsided us. Like, the thought of him dying just never even occurred to me. Like, I can't even. It still blows my mind some days that, like, I can't believe we're living this. But we didn't know about fentanyl. I mean, that was the day we learned about fentanyl, and that was the day that we learned that social media was much more than sexual predators and bullies.
- [04:31]
C
Yes.
- [04:32]
A
Yeah.
- [04:34]
C
Gosh, I cannot just put into words the response. So when that all happened and you went. I mean, just the guttle pain of it all, how. What did you end up doing kind of besides just trying to cope and deal with his death? How did it turn at some point, into activism and advocacy?
- [05:00]
B
Almost immediately, I was. I was very honest about how he died among all of our friends and family, because I was terrified of it happening to one of his other friends. I mean, it could have been any one of Alexander's friends that night because they were all doing the same things. It happened to be him. It just happened to be him. And we had just had that conversation. So I feel like if you're watching a movie of my life, our life, you would have saw it coming, you know, but it just. Again, who dies from one oxy like that? Was the confusion right there. And so we instantly, you know, in that, in that fog, you know, I gave, we all gave ourselves permission at home to like, do nothing for a little bit. And then in that time, I started to learn more about these things and I started to, like, at first we thought it was just a weird one off thing that happened in our house, right? Like we were just victims of unfortunate circumstances, like the perfect storm, but came to quickly realize that, like, this is a thing. This is happening all over the country. Parents are waking up and finding their kids dead in their bedrooms. And. And the first time I spoke out was at Alex's funeral. I got up, I talked about the. Briefly talked about the issue, told his friends that if you are struggling, please to get help immediately because we are talking about a life or death situation. This isn't the drug problem your parents grew up with. And that was it. From there, we started talking to. I started talking to experts and again, learning from high level people. Doctors, lawyers, you know, law enforcement, you name it, I was talking to them. But at the end of that, something was still missing. And that was the teen voice, that teen perspective. And Starting November of 2020, I talk to teens all the time. I have regular listening sessions with young people. And so everything that we. All the work that we do through the foundation is youth informed because they are on the front lines of this. You know, we're trying to guide them through their teenage years without the lived experience that they're having. And so, like, I always tell them, like, I need you to help me help you. And so that's really how it's gone so far.
- [07:18]
C
When you started really talking with the teens, do you remember any initial kind of either surprises or just the strong messages that came out?
- [07:29]
B
I do a couple of things right out of the gate. One was we're being told to just say no, but we don't even really know what we're saying no to, meaning the drugs, whatever. Just say no to using drugs. Okay, well, what exactly does saying no mean? What exactly am I saying no to? Because we're. We still weren't getting into the nitty gritty of it with young people. Another. Another kiddo, I will never forget. It was that first listening session and he says to me, just don't bullshit me. And that is a recurring theme over and over again. These kids just want us to tell them the truth, no matter how hard it is. And they can handle it. I see it all the time. And so those were some big, big ones. And the other thing too is that kiddos aren't just partying, they're not just using drugs with friends, they're self medicating, they're having anxiety, whatever it is. And they're putting those symptoms into the Internet. And WebMD or any search engine will spit out a diagnosis and possible treatment. And part of that treatment is medications. And so they think they can go get these medications to help them. And when I ask them like, well, why don't you go to your trusted adult and it's, well, I don't wanna disappoint them. So that's a hard one. And so they also think, you know, it's a medicine. These drug dealers are advertising them as legit medications when they're counterfeit. Right. Made with fentanyl. And so they think it seems safer because people we know and love stay alive because of real medications. Right. And so it doesn't seem as dangerous or risky to take what is perceived as a legit medication.
- [09:06]
C
And we should say to listeners what we mean by oxycontin and Fentanyl and why dealers are putting fentanyl into the pills.
- [09:15]
B
So we're talking about illicit fentanyl.
- [09:17]
C
Right.
- [09:17]
B
And so the reason that these drug dealers use illicit fentanyl is because it's so readily available, number one. Number two, it's super duper cheap to, to make, to counterfeit these drugs with this. And because they don't have to do it the old fashioned way where they grow poppies and hope the harvest is good and the season is right and the DEA doesn't burn down their crops like that whole supply chain doesn't have to exist anymore. They just get the precursors and they're able to make it. And the other question that kind of comes up in that same realm is like, well, why would drug dealers want to kill their customer? And it's like, it's not that they want to kill their customers. It's just an unintended side effect. It's the cost of doing business.
- [09:56]
C
You, with many other parents are out there combating the ways that kids are getting these exposure. So one is you guys have had protests, for example, outside of Snapchat.
- [10:10]
B
Yeah.
- [10:10]
C
Can you just give a little history of what you guys did and where we're at with that?
- [10:15]
B
So in the last few years, I've organized four rallies in front of the Snapchat headquarters. We do them just to keep nudging at Snapchat, to do the right thing. Right. And to keep drawing attention, to keep this information out there. And so from there we've also I was able to initiate the Snapchat lawsuit that's happening out there with the Social Media Victims Law Center. People can just go search for it online and look it up and learn more about it. But we're just basically stating that the design of these products gave, you know, bad people access to our kids. That's the short of it. And we are in general discovery right now.
- [10:52]
C
And can you speak to why Snapchat in particular?
- [10:55]
B
Well, it's the, it's literally the disappearing messages now I have in my listening sessions. The conversation around Snapchat has evolved. Whereas, you know, it was full on menus. Drug dealers reaching out to kids. That this, you know, this is coming from what the kiddos are telling me they're experiencing to drug dealers grooming them over the course of time. Think like, you know, how a sexual predator would.
- [11:17]
C
Can you give some information about how things have changed by what Snapchat is doing? You know, has Snapchat responded with actual changes that you're seeing?
- [11:27]
B
Oh, first off, I do want to say a couple things. Number one, Snap does have reporting mechanisms on there that are truly anonymous. So I encourage anyone and everyone to use them. And like I tell the kiddos, like, you might say something that it's not bothering you, but it's troublesome if you report that and it gets removed, you could be helping somebody else. You don't even know. If you see something, say something, please report it. On those apps, they do have a parent center that they came out with, but this parent center requires you now to get a Snapchat account, which pains me to even tell you that because now your revenue for them, right now you're just another user on their platform that they can collect data on and sell. But it's better than nothing. What's really troubling to me though with Snapchat is how last year, you know, they're trying to gaslight the American public. They came out with that ad campaign that stated that they were not social media. In fact, they, they are the anti social media.
- [12:19]
C
I didn't see that.
- [12:20]
B
Oh my gosh, you need to go look it up. It is ridiculous. I mean, oh my gosh. And I, I, when I, when I, you know, doing education to youth and we're talking about these things, I'll tell them that. And their faces all become distorted. And I always laugh. I'm like, I know, I feel the same way. Like, who do they, how dumb do they think we are?
- [12:47]
C
Let me ask, let's just reiterate too about this Issue of fully disappeared versus there is a footprint there. Let's go back to your son for a moment. Were you able to look at his past snaps?
- [13:01]
B
We were not. Law enforcement took his phone right away that day. And unfortunately, when they gave it back to me, it's broken and I can't log into it anymore. But. But I'm trying not to hold a grudge, but it took Snap over a year to reply to subpoenas on this. There's actually. Can I promote something else? Another. Yes. There's an article in Rolling Stone from last summer. It's called Inside Snapchat's Teen Opioid Crisis. And it kind of chronicles what happened with Alexander and Snapchat where basically at the year mark, they actually removed this guy's account and ruin the investigation. So if anybody wants to really go deep into that, that's something to do. So we never got anything from Snapchat. They kicked back the subpoenas like three times saying something was wrong with it and they couldn't comply with it.
- [13:51]
C
And what guy. So there was a. They had identified a person who had sold it, but they.
- [13:55]
B
Yeah, so two months after Alex died, one of his friends was having a really hard time. And so we went out to lunch and I asked them, I said, hey, do you happen to know where he got it? And they went right to their Snapchat and gave me the guy's information. Two months later, I get a message on Facebook from a woman who says, hey, are you this person? I'm like, yeah. She's like, I've got something to show you. It's pictures of her son's Snapchat account of this drug dealer talking about my son. Her son died two weeks after Alex. And from those snaps, I learned that a kid died in this drug dealer's apartment two weeks before Alex. And then there's another kid that died because this drug dealer supplied the other dealer with the drugs that killed this kid.
- [14:41]
C
Did he eventually go into custody? Did they find him?
- [14:45]
B
Oh, they found him, but he got arrested on gun charges and then was let out nine months later. But nothing on these cases.
- [14:54]
C
And why is that?
- [14:56]
B
Because there's no evidence. Because it's all, poof, disappeared.
- [15:00]
C
And. And then the subpoenas. Meaning you were asking Snapchat to find the communication strings. But they actually do say, look, we purposely do not keep a record. Like maybe it's a 24 hour thing that they keep the messages. Yeah, well, can you explain that?
- [15:18]
B
That's supposedly accurate. But it's interestingly enough, some Families have been able to get information so to say whether it does disappear because it's supposed to be end to end encrypted. No one's supposed to be able to that stuff, right? It has come up in some instances, but in our case, you know, a whole year, almost year later, nothing's left. It's all gone.
- [15:38]
C
Big picture, do we think that you said the awful number of what's happening? Have things gotten a little bit better in terms of access to substances on Snapchat or we think it's worse or it's just the same or it's really. Obviously it's a super hard data to collect, but what is yours says, yeah,
- [15:58]
B
well you say it's super hard data to collect, but I believe Snapchat knows the real number. I mean they have the power in which to do that, but they say they don't have for whatever reason that I'll never understand is that for some reason they can't. And then they. The other thing too is they're allowed to self report, right? There's no third party checking them out and saying that what they're actually doing is true. These drug dealers are always however many steps ahead, right. So you can misspell the words, you do a certain combination of emojis and it's going to get you to where you want to go. Are our kids getting our drug dealers getting access to our kids like they used to? I don't know. Are drug menus coming up as prevalent as they used to? I don't know, but they are still coming up. I have people who I ask every now and then, hey, can you find me a drug menu on Snapchat? Not even, you know, okay, give me, give me some. As soon as I can, I'll look and then I get one. A recent one. So it's still very much a thing. There have been recent deaths. So as far as I'm concerned, it's still not enough. Yeah, especially when they make these little tweaks, right? These what I refer to as band aid fixes when we need major surgery. You know, we've got some great legislation out there, the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety act, the Cooper Davis, Devin Noring Act. Great pieces of legislation that could protect people and help people. They say they support them. I say, okay, show us. By implementing it now, you do not need an act of Congress to do the right thing, right?
- [17:31]
C
Then there's all this behind the scene money happening through lobbying. That is very often the opposite. So that is really concerning.
- [17:40]
B
Oh yeah. They all pay into NetChoice to do whatever NetChoice does. They all pay into these lobbyists.
- [17:46]
C
It's really kind of unbelievable that there has not been any really meaty regulation laws pass since 1996, really communications decency act by which really gave these companies immunity to being sued.
- [18:06]
B
We had a meeting with them of spring of 2021 and in that meeting they, I'm summarizing here, they said, so sorry for your loss. We had no idea this was such a problem. You can see in the media, in the news that Snap is getting warned in 2017 saying you have a drug problem on your platform and if you don't get a handle on it, it's going to get out of control. And here we are, the fallout from that.
- [18:35]
C
So stepping back for a moment, can you say some things that you find helpful for parents, the ways to have conversations about this with their kids?
- [18:45]
B
Well, the first thing that we have to do is let go of what we believe, right? Firmly held beliefs that our child will never do this because you never know when the timing is right and your child might do something you never think they're going to do. So we have to let that go. Or my child's smarter than that or I know what my kid is doing online, but do you really? So figure out ways to help your kid understand what they're looking at or seeing is not real life is harmful, maybe report it and start those conversations. I meet a lot of kiddos that are like, well, my dad doesn't let me have social media and now I understand why.
- [19:21]
C
One of the things that I came up with is called safety first, which is to kind of take a open verbal pledge with your kids and teens saying hard things are going to happen. Not if they happen hard things. Things are kids, friends, others are going to say things inappropriate. You might get approached all of these things, safety first, we're not about, or I'm not just about taking away your devices. It will be much more of a discussion of problem solving together, how to respond. And if your safety was in imminent danger, then that might have to happen. But by far, it's much more important that we have these conversations than for you to have a fear that I'm just going to take all your access to media away. We will at least know that we've been giving that message. It does not mean that they're going to come forward, I mean at all. But we will look back and say, ah, I tried. Because without doing that, you and I both know that I've worked With, you know, hundreds and hundreds of teens over the years, they will tell us, you and I, all the time. I, I'm not gonna talk to my parent because they're just gonna take away my device. It's not worth the risk to me.
- [20:38]
B
And, you know, it's hard too, because the other thing too is we think we can be doing all the right things and put all the guardrails in place. Like we thought we had the guardrails in place for these things. And it still happened, it still got in, you know, and I look back all the time and like, what would have made the difference? And I'm not, I'm still not sure of that answer other than, you know, going way back in time and never having a phone or access to the rest of the world in the first place.
- [21:05]
C
Right. We only have so much control in this world and we're all, every day at risk for the hardest things to happen. With our film. Screenagers under the influence. The reason that it's been so popular and it's being screened to families and students all over the country is because, as you mentioned earlier, the young people say, tell us the truth and be straight with us and give us realistic situations. That's what the film is all about. And so it's really, really important science and stories and to the parents, it weaves in all sorts of practical approaches of how to do this and it dispels myths. And I want to just end by giving parents and young people who are listening to this podcast places they can go, things that they can do, even if it's just one hour a month, to address this and be doing action.
- [22:08]
B
So our foundation actually has a peer to peer prevention program that happens all across the United States. It's an online thing that we do. You could find that on our website. That's one thing. But more locally in your towns, there's many of these drug free communities coalitions, drug prevention coalitions that have a youth component to them and they're looking for youth all the time to join them and be a part of the messaging. I know for us, we actually have a coalition here in Arizona where our. It's youth. It's a youth led, It's a youth led effort and they work on, you know, PSAs, social media campaigning. We take them to a, we take them to a conference called the Cadca every year so they can learn more and get involved with these issues on a deeper level and they get to be a part of making their community a better place among, among their peers. And so I think that is one of the most powerful vehicles out there.
- [23:04]
C
People are living with a lot of anxiousness around all this, and they don't realize that can be wonderful fuel to become active and do something.
- [23:12]
B
We need critical mass, and that's going to take the general public.
- [23:16]
C
Yeah. And I want to add a lot of the work that we do at Screenagers is the idea of a vulnerable village. There's such a myth that families should stay in their silo and not get involved. But let's say your teen knows somebody
- [23:28]
B
that they're a little worried about.
- [23:29]
C
How do we mobilize to gingerly help and reach to other parents? How can people find your work, Amy?
- [23:37]
B
So you can go to alexandernevillefoundation.org and then reach out to me? Amynfhelp.org I'm always happy to connect and help and do whatever I can to help in these situations.
- [23:50]
C
I can't thank you enough.
- [23:51]
B
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm grateful for these opportunities.
- [24:01]
C
What a gift that you chose to tune into the show today. The Screenagers movement is all about doing this work together. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get each episode automatically, and the more subscribers, the easier it is for others to find us. And if you give it some stars, that helps even more. Check out screenagersmovie.com to get resources for each episode to learn about our four Screenagers movies and to find my weekly parenting blog, TechTalk Tuesdays. Curious about a specific topic? Use the search bar to get answers from our many blogs and podcast episodes. Finally, I love hearing from you, so email me at delaneyscreenagersmovie.com what ideas do you have for future episodes? Today's show was produced by the following people. Me, your host, Delaney Reston, Lisa Tabb, Rebecca Tolan, and Robbie Carver.