Instagram is known for its celebrity posts and photos of enviable vacations. But it has also become a sizable open marketplace for advertising illegal drugs.
The company has pledged a crackdown in recent weeks, but it is struggling to keep pace with its own algorithms and systems, which serve up an array of personalized drug-related content aimed directly at people who show an interest in buying substances illicitly.
Recent searches on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, for hashtags of the names of drugs - such as #oxy, #percocet, #painkillers, #painpills, #oxycontin, #adderall and #painrelief - revealed thousands of posts by a mash-up of people grappling with addiction, bragging about their partygoing lifestyle and enticements from drug dealers.