Fentanyl victim’s family backs Senate bill demystifying social media sales

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A Twin Cities family that lost a teenage daughter to fentanyl overdose is throwing their emotional weight behind a law shining a light on typically hidden social media sales.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt are promoting the Cooper Davis Act.

Anastasia Shevtsova was 15 years old and struggling with anxiety and depression last year when she went online looking for Percocet.

She bought a single pill from a mystery seller on Snapchat and within hours, she was dead of a fentanyl overdose.

Olga Shevtsova remembers her daughter for her musical ability and her beautiful singing voice.

Anastasia’s songs went silent last year in March when she took a pill she bought through social media. Olga found her daughter’s lifeless body in her bedroom.

"I turned her over and her face was blue," she told FOX 9. "And that's when the chaos broke out. And, you know, life as I knew it ended."

In 2021, 834 people died from opioid overdoses in Minnesota, and 90% of those deaths involved fentanyl.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently found one-third of drug poisoning cases have direct ties to social media, but sales arranged on those sites are cloaked in secrecy.

"The thought that law enforcement doesn't even have the information about what's going on in these platforms to me is absolutely outrageous," says Sen. Klobuchar.

She is co-sponsoring the Cooper Davis Act, which would require social media companies to report certain illegal drug sales found on their platforms.

"This is important," says Witt. "Our kids are important."

Olga Shevtsova’s grief hasn’t gone away, and she won’t let it.

She says she’ll use it instead to make sure people understand how important it is to intervene and save kids like Anastasia.

"Hold onto your children," she said. "Pay attention to them and love them."

The Cooper Davis Act is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Opponents say it goes too far in pressuring sites to report users’ online activity, location data, and identifying information.