➡ Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, renowned for being the center of a congregation for a long period, has developed a form of tourism. However, it struggles with a severe drug problem due to a potent animal tranquilizer, xylazine, present in 90% of the street opioid samples by 2021. The problem, initially confined to Philadelphia, is spreading rapidly and has destructive effects on the community. Remedies proposed so far, including crime prevention, storefront improvements, and a security camera program, are not making sufficient impact according to local residents.
➡ The text discusses the claim that medical professionals and therapists might not fully cure patients to secure continuous financial gain from treatments and sessions. Further, it discusses three perceived methods of societal change: the creation of a police state, letting a city destroy itself before gentrification takes place, and lastly, neighborhood self-regulation which is deemed unlikely. The text also addresses how business owners in troubled neighborhoods struggle with crime and drug addiction around their establishments, which impacts daily operations and extra costs, termed the ‘Kensington tax’. Despite challenges, these owners aim to improve their communities rather than show hostility. Additionally, the speaker plans a tour across challenging locations to document hardship.

We all know that Kensington Avenue over in Philadelphia has been at the forefront of the congregation for a long time. I mean, and when I say for a long time, I mean for a long time. So much so, to where there’s now a tourism industry, especially from TikTokers, which I will detail tomorrow. Traveling to Philadelphia, people are literally going out of their way, like they going over to Cancun or they’re going over to Tulum or something, Dubai, and are taking trips over to Philadelphia’s Kensington Avenue in order to capture what is happening out there on them streets.

But before we get to that tomorrow, I want to bring you guys up to speed on why things are so bad over in Philadelphia and what the streets is really doing about it. All right, make sure y’all hit a like for the algorithm. Subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications. It’s an animal tranquilizer that has found its way into heroin and fentanyl supplies in Philadelphia, and it’s now spreading across the country.

NBC’s George Solis traveled to ground zero for the dangerous new substance, Philly’s Kensington neighborhood, where he spoke with business owners and volunteers on the front lines of this cris. And we want to warn you, the topics covered here and the imagery as well, it is graphic. This is an anti drug ad running in Mexico. He’s not warning about places like Tijuana or Juarez, but instead the city of Philadelphia, specifically the Kensington neighborhood.

There are ads literally running outside of the country, basically to let you know and prevent you from getting over to Philly. You know, the United States of America is a bad place to be in when there’s ads running over in Mexico from the government in Mexico. If you look in the upper left hand corner of this video, the government of Mexico is sponsoring this video based off of the idea that you need to be very careful about what’s happening over in the United States of America.

I never thought, honestly, I never thought that I’d see today in my wildest dreams, and listen, I watched the first season of narcos. I never thought that I’d see today in my wildest dreams that the government of Mexico will be running an ad about the dangers of what is happening over in Philadelphia. This country is really going through going. I never thought I’d see the day that this type of stuff will be happening.

Mexico. The government of Mexico is sponsoring a video to show you what is happening over in Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, home to one of the nation’s largest open air drug markets, where drug overdose deaths are skyrocketing in large part because of a new substance in the drug supply, the powerful animal sedative, xylazine, aka trank. Store owner Elbus Amantio knows the devastation all too well. He’s been cleaning up garbage, human waste, and discarded needles from his storefront every day for more than a decade.

How exhausting is it to have to clean up every single day? It’s a little bit frustrating that you got to keep doing it, but he has nowhere to go. Could there be a point where it becomes too much for you and your family to do this day in and day out? I’ll say, if any or my family or my employees get harmed, I think I’ll think about it.

Trank first appeared in Philly more than a decade ago, mixed in with heroin and fentanyl. But by 2021, it was found in 90% of all street opioid samples. And it’s quickly spread throughout the country, increasing in some regions, almost 200% drank over. And, you know, so funny. Tomorrow I’m going to continue over in Philadelphia. Thursday I’m going to make my way over into New York, because now it’s really taking hold in New York.

And see, this is the problem. When you don’t stop it in its tracks, when you don’t get to the root of the problem, them, when you don’t address it, when you first start seeing it, shout out to ashy knuckles, I’m going to read that super chat shortly. When you don’t address it, when you first start seeing and you don’t nip it in the bud, what happens is it starts to spread to your cities.

And so a lot of y’all think that you save just because, oh, it’s contained within Philadelphia. No, it’s not. It’s going to start to spread over into your cities because, listen, you’re not thinking like a supplier, you’re not thinking like an opportunist. Remember when some of these things took off? Like when chicks first started selling hair bundles and stuff? And then it started off maybe in Atlanta, and then it spread over into Florida or went over to Macon and the small cities, and it started going over into bigger cities and up to Detroit and over to New York.

Next thing you know, you had everybody selling bundles. Every chick across the United States of America. I remember when I first seen those picture booth things where the thing is going to circle around you and then you’d be dancing like this, and then they go in slow motion. Remember those things when you first seen it, like, oh, that was cool. Next thing you know, every single place and city and crack and crevice that you can possibly find, one of those things, you go over there in New York, they got them back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back on the street.

I’m not muted. I’m in slow motion. I’m not muted. I’m in slow. Why y’all keep telling me that I’m muted. I’m not muted. I’m moving in slow motion on a 360 camera booth. Y’all ignorant. But my point is that, let me get back to the point that I was making with regard to Philadelphia. My point is that now, if you paying attention to it or it’s a message of opportunity, it’s the same thing with the drug dealers, right? And so they say, well, man, we got it popping over here in Philly on Kensington Avenue.

Why wouldn’t we be able to take over New York? And ain’t nobody over there doing it like that. You know what I’m saying? It ain’t nobody over there doing it over in Detroit. It ain’t nobody else doing it over there in Seattle. And so they start to spread out based off of opportunity. And so it’s not just going to stop in your space, it’s going to continue to spread.

And Philadelphia was just one of the ground zero spaces that it really took hold of. Doses can’t be reversed by Narcan, and many users develop flesh eating infections that can lead to amputation if left untreated. In Kensington, limb saving care takes place at street level on tables like this. Have you saved lives on this table? Yes, we absolutely have. Our team constantly saves lives. Sarah Laurel runs Savage sisters recovery, providing care and housing for addicts and cleanups for the neighborhood.

She draws on her own near death experience with addiction to help those in need. Seeing my friends on the street with their limbs exposed does not make me want to get high. It does not make me want to use. It makes me want to bring change. And I don’t think that anybody could walk out there and see what we deal with on a daily basis and say, I want what they have.

Laurel says the city is ignoring its responsibility to both residents and the unhoused. They’re not coming through for the business owners that have been here, and this us against them mentality is exactly what the city wants. The infighting keeps the focus off of them. Business owners and nonprofits in Kensington are fighting to promote positive change in the neighborhood with demands for basic needs like housing and funding for health resources.

When we reached out, the city pointed to a number of programs and services it’s launched to help address the community’s needs, including crime prevention tips, storefront improvements and a security camera program. But many here say it’s not making enough of a difference. The city treat this neighborhood is like the trash can. Because it is a trash can. Because it is a trash can. Listen, it’s really only two ways for you to solve this problem.

It’s only two ways for you to solve this problem. Now, the first way, I’ve never seen people actually do it, and so it’s impossible in my opinion, because it’s never actually been proven. The first way is for the people to actually get involved and start reporting and taking ownership of what happens within their community and reporting the people that they know is selling the drugs, is bringing in the drugs or whatever, because it’s not a secret.

Everybody know where to get it, everybody know where it’s funded, everybody know where it’s coming from. And so it’s similar to what we see happening in the healthcare industry. People know what causes you to get all of the problems that you have them from a healthcare perspective, but they refuse to remove it because it’s profitable. The Food and Drug Administration make a lot of money from all of the stuff that they put inside of your foods, the processed foods and all of that.

And so it’s incentivized and then the doctors are not going to cure you because there’s more money in the treatments and solving for the symptoms than it is to actually cure you. Ain’t no money in getting you cured. Listen, if I cure you, then you can’t come and give me no more money. Same thing when it comes to therapy. I know people that’s been going to the same therapist for the last three, four, five years.

Why would the therapist want to lose you as a client when literally every single week you come to them with your problems and express your concerns, and then you come over here and talk about how you keep getting better. Oh, I’ve made strides and changes. You still are the same. You and you, just looking for another opportunity to be able to vent to somebody to make you feel better about yourself.

Yet you all keep telling me, oh, no, they give you the tools that you need in order to come and fix yourself. It’s not up to them. Sounds like a scam to me. Sounds like a scam to me. And so that’s the first way that you do it. The only other way that I can think of that you do it as you flood the streets with police officers.

It’s actually a third way. But you all don’t want to hear the third way as you flood the streets with police officers and you prevent anything from moving without you actually understanding what’s going on. So everything going to have eyes on it. And then the people are going to be mad and they’re going to say, you’re removing our right to be able to choose for ourselves. It’s martial law.

And then the third way is let the city completely eat itself inside out. And then you come in and you gentrify it and then people get mad at you for buying it for cheap. And then they’re going to say white people came in and took it over and that we should be making affordable housing for the community. That’s the only three ways that I’ve ever seen it change either.

People take control of their own neighborhood and they start reporting to people that are selling the drugs and selling it and doing all of this stuff. Never happens. You go in there with a military movement and nothing moves unless you know what’s going on. And so you starve everybody out. And so they move and they go where they can actually participate and do the process instead of where it is that they feel like it’s comfortable.

Or last but not least, you just wait till they eat themselves out, starve themselves and ruin themselves from the inside out. And then you go and buy it in for cheap and you gentrify it and you make it available to the hippies. And then we all come and live happily ever after and then we do it again to another city. So that’s the only way that I’ve ever seen it happen.

Moving these people from one block to the other, it’s not a solution. We cannot continue ignoring this because these are human beings. Husband and wife Dionicio and Mariangeli must ask addicts to move away from their award winning restaurant, Cantina La Martina, nearly every day. These people have feelings like they’re human beings. They’ll understand, they’ll apologize, they’ll pick up their things and they’ll leave and they’re sorry. Even though Cantina was named a James Beard award finalist, they say some food vendors won’t even come to the restaurant because of the scene outside.

Instead of being frustrated, Dio and Mariangeli feel that advocating for their community and those struggling with addiction has become part of the restaurant’s mission. We are here because we are business owners, but we’re also here because we have a social responsibility. You can’t help them you’re not fixing nothing. You’re not fixing nothing. It takes the people to actually get involved. The cantina, a pop of color amidst the dark depths of addiction.

Look at that crazy crap. And George Solis joining us now. I get, I’m going to Philly. It’s going to be one of the first stops that I make next year. One of the first stops that I make next year is right over to Kensington Avenue. Business owners, they want to stay invested in neighborhoods like this, even though all this is going on around them. But with that in mind, how are they surviving? Yeah, Yasmin, it’s the cost of doing business in the Kensington section of Philadelphia.

A lot of business owners there call it the Kensington tax. So, for example, you have insurance. Now, some business owners say they simply can’t get anyone to insure them, but others say they can, just at a higher premium. As far as that conversation about food vendors, well, a lot of business owners and restaurateurs, they have to work out deals with vendors to meet them at different locations so that they can get some of their supplies.

And, of course, this is all coming out of their pocket. Nobody’s compensating them for this, but it’s what they have to do to survive. And another big issue for a lot of the businesses down there are these encampments that are set up in front of storefronts. And you heard there in that story, sometimes they just have to have a conversation with them and move them. Now, sometimes the city will come in and also provide eviction notices.

But it all depends on how long these encampments, these tent cities, if you will, have been set up. Bottom line here, a lot of these business owners say they want to work with the neighborhood. They don’t want to do it by being hostile to the people. They want everyone to basically work together, and they hope that the community will respond in kind. Yeah, good luck with that. I can’t wait to head over to Kensington.

Oh, I’m going to the darkest places in the streets. I’m going to the border. I’m going to Kensington. When I do my tour, it’s not only going to be fireside chats for us to be able to kick it in person, but I’m also going to be documenting what’s going on in the streets. .