My son Avery was sixteen years old when he died after taking poisoned drugs purchased from a 33-year-old dealer on Snapchat.<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours of arriving at his mother’s house in Washington last Christmas, Avery had connected with a local drug dealer through Snapchat. The transaction at his home in Olympia was as casual as ordering food through Doordash: a quick search revealed a dealer openly selling drugs who delivered them directly to Avery. Within hours, my son was dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n I later learned that Snapchat had received a subpoena for the dealer’s account records two months before he was allowed to deal drugs to my son. They knew about him and did nothing, allowing a known dealer to keep selling drugs to kids using their platform.<\/p>\n If Snapchat had enforced their own rules, which they claim keep kids on their platform safe, my son would still be alive. Now, a new bill on its way to Governor Jared Polis\u2019 desk could spare other\u00a0 families from this kind of completely preventable tragedy.<\/p>\n There is just one problem: Gov. Polis is threatening to veto it \u2013 siding with billion dollar tech companies instead of parents, kids, law enforcement, and an overwhelming bipartisan consensus.<\/p>\n