Zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia: Center of Consumption
Drugs continue to wreak havoc in the United States, it is an uncontrollable “plague”, to the point that there is a zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia.
This so-called zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia is located in Kensington, very close to the border with New Jersey.
Thus, this area subjected under the effects of fentanyl, It began to have more and more relevance, when content creators approached the “red light district” to record their videos and expose the crisis that is observed in this area.
What is striking about this zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia, is the filth that roams the streets of Kensington. From plastic wrappers, to broken mattresses and boxes.
There is a high rate of homelessness and street people, so their belongings and debris are part of the general landscape of the area.
But what really set off the alarm bells, the real reason why the place is so neglected, is the use of fentanyl.
Fentanyl acts on the central nervous system to provide analgesic effects.
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Due to its high potency, which is approximately 50 to 100 times greater than morphine, fentanyl has a high potential for addiction and overdose, which can be fatal, which is why this area is teeming with people and why they now call it Philadelphia’s zombie neighborhood.
“They inject needles into their arms, neck and between their toes. They limp and nod. Some are lying on the ground and appear to be dead,” The New York Times exposed.
Zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia: Center of Consumption
Moreover, it is not only the locals who use, but, because of the ease of getting it, addicts from other areas concentrate there.
About 500,000 people lost their lives to opioid-related overdoses in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency explains that there were three major waves of use in the last two decades.
The first wave began in the 1990s, driven by opioids; the second, emerged in 2010, with a notable increase in deaths also linked to heroin use; and since 2013, fentanyl has played a relevant role in this context.
The drug is so addictive and dangerous that Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, last year called it an “emerging threat.” Xylazine was found in more than 90% of drug samples tested in Philadelphia in 2021, according to city data.
But there’s another aspect of the zombie neighborhood in Philadelphia-access to fentanyl lures the
According to reports from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), prices for “tranq” (as it is called in US slang) range from USD 6 to USD 20.
In addition, The New York Post exposed a chilling modality increasingly common among addicts: paying others to find their veins so they can infiltrate the drug.
The nickname for people who inject the drug into others is “hitters,” and the price ranges from $2 to $5. “Some people are afraid to hit themselves or don’t know how to hit themselves,” a fentanyl and crack user explained to the NPR outlet.
“Some people’s veins are harder to hit than others, so they need someone to do it for them,” she closed.
In 2021, Philadelphia recorded nearly 1,300 unintentional overdose deaths, a 160% increase over the previous decade, according to city data. In addition, the highest number of deaths (164) occurred in the Kensington ZIP code.
“Tranq is basically zombifying people’s bodies,” one addict told Sky News. “Until nine months ago, I never had any injuries. Now, I have holes in my legs and feet.”
Philadelphia’s zombie neighborhood in Kensington is the most graphic definition of the opioid epidemic ravaging the entire country.
But fentanyl is just the latest chapter in a crisis that began years ago, among other factors, with the arrival of Oxycontin on the market in the late 1990s.
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