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values.snap.com

Heads Up and Snapchat fentanyl education

Also: Heads Up

Snap's in-app fentanyl education on Snapchat from 2021: the Heads Up portal (announced 7 October 2021) shows expert content instead of results when users search drug terms; a video ad campaign made with Song for Charlie; a national filter; Good Luck America news episodes; and, from October 2022, AR lenses and $1 million in ad credits for the Ad Council's Real Deal on Fentanyl. It ran alongside Snap's enforcement work after families reported that young people bought fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills from dealers on Snapchat.

Years
2021–now
Country
United States
Topic
DrugsOpioids
Asks people to
Never startRecognize
Strategy
Service linkSimple instruction
Channel
AppSearchSocial (organic)Social (paid)
Audience
Young adultsYouth
Snapchat users, mostly teens and young adults; Heads Up content is triggered by drug-related searches.

Evidence

Self-reportedUnknown

Snap reported the Song for Charlie video campaign had been viewed over 260 million times on Snapchat by October 2021. Snap's research with Morning Consult (2021) found many young people did not know enough about fentanyl to judge the danger; this was formative research, not an evaluation. No outcome evaluation found.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Snap Inc. Industry, funder, platform and creator

Credits (who made it)

  • Morning Consult Research evaluation, 2021 source

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. How Snap is responding to the fentanyl crisis (Snap, 7 Oct 2021) sponsor · 2021
  2. Continuing our efforts to combat the U.S. fentanyl crisis (Snap, 12 Oct 2022) sponsor · 2022
  3. Launching an unprecedented public awareness campaign on the dangers of fentanyl (Snap, Oct 2022) sponsor · 2022
  4. Honoring the third annual National Fentanyl Awareness Day (Snap, 7 May 2024) sponsor · 2024

Research notes

Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Morning Consult (Snap, 7 Oct 2021: 'we commissioned research from Morning Consult'). Heads Up expert partners by 2024: CDC, SAMHSA, CADCA, Shatterproof, Truth Initiative, SAFE Project. Snap's own posts acknowledge 'cases where fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills were purchased from drug dealers on Snapchat'; the education effort is part of a corporate response under legal and public pressure, which matters when reading its claims. Executions not linked: the Song for Charlie Snapchat ads and filter are not in a public archive found so far (try Snap's political/advocacy ads library).

Record cases/snap-heads-up-fentanyl.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign