Global Courant 2023-04-15 18:06:18
This is the fifth story in a series about the outdoor drug market in Kensington. Read the First, second, third and fourth parts.
PHILADELPHIA — The Kensington neighborhood may be notorious for being an open-air drug market, but one former resident is a constant reminder that it’s also a community where families, including children, live.
“Many people have the misconception that Kensington is just for drug use and sales,” Frank Rodriguez, himself a recovering heroin addict, told Fox News. “I have to remind them that Kensington is not a drug den. It’s a community.’
IN KENSINGTON, CHILDREN HAVE TO ‘WALK OVER BODY’ TO GO TO SCHOOL. WATCH:
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The Pennsylvania borough has attracted international attention for its rampant public drug use. Heroin and then fentanyl have plagued the community. It was ground zero for the latest craze, xylazine, a deadly veterinary sedative that literally eats away users’ flesh.
“Of course it’s an open-air drug market and a big one,” Rodriguez said. “But that’s not all. There are people living there. There are hard-working people.”
Since escaping Kensington, Rodriguez has become an advocate for humanizing drug addicts. He clips them and posts their testimonials to his YouTube channel,”Morals over money.”
But Rodriguez also wants to remind America that addiction also affects non-users.
Rodriguez toured Kensington with Fox News, occasionally stopping to check on addicts passing out on the sidewalk. He stressed that while the neighborhood is notorious as an open-air drug market, it is also home to families, including children. (Fox News digital)
OVERDOSES CONTINUE TO FUEL SELLING FOR THE SACKLERS – THE FAMILY ACCULATED FOR FIGILING THE OPIOID CRISIS
“There are kids who live there who have to walk over bodies to catch the bus, go to school, go to the library,” he said. “There are people who have been held hostage in their own homes in that community.”
However, unlike many proponents, Rodriguez does not believe that widespread addiction is a problem that can be solved.
“I even stopped thinking that way,” he told Fox News.
Instead, the lawyer thinks drug use in Kensington can be curtailed, at least enough so that “people can walk and not have to see people lying around.”
An addict skyrockets in Kensington, a Philadelphia neighborhood ravaged by the drug overdose epidemic. Rodriguez says children who live in the area regularly see this on their way to school. (Fox News digital)
PHILADELPHIA’S OUTDOOR DRUG MARKET IS ‘A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY,’ SAYS A FORMER RESIDENTE AND ADDICTIVE
At the very least, it should be cleared up enough so that “kids can go to school, take the school bus or train and not see someone with a needle stuck in their arm or shoved down their neck or smoking a crack pipe.”
But even containment is not an easy task. No specific data is available for Kensington, but according to the city, Philadelphia experienced nearly 1,300 accidental overdose deaths in 2021, more than 80% of which were opioids such as heroin or fentanyl.
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“I think as long as there are people, as long as there is pain, as long as there is depression and mental health, there will be addiction and substance abuse,” Rodriguez said.
He provided a starting point to change the neighborhood.
“First and foremost, especially in Kensington, they need to stop allowing the use and sale of drugs in the open,” Rodriguez told Fox News.
Ethan Barton is a producer/reporter for Digital Originals. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @ethanrbarton.
