The DEA’s War on Emojis: When Drug Warriors Turn into Digital Detectives

The DEA has released an “emoji decoding guide” that reads like a collaboration between Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and a particularly unhinged conspiracy theorist’s Pinterest board. According to our nation’s premier drug enforcement agency, teenagers are using clovers, pine trees, dragons, cookies, and red maple leaves to orchestrate sophisticated drug trafficking operations through text messages. It’s as if the DEA discovered the internet yesterday and decided that every symbol more complex than a smiley face must be part of an international drug conspiracy.