Happy holiday from Philly! Depressing sight from birthplace of American independence as drug users and homeless blight city
- New footage shows drug addicts shooting up in broad daylight in Philadelphia
- The Kensington neighborhood is known as ‘ground zero’ for the city’s drug crisis
- READ MORE: Inside Philadelphia’s untamed ‘tranq’ epidemic
Disturbing photos have revealed Philadelphia’s drugs crisis, with homeless people shooting up on the streets of the birthplace of American independence over the Fourth of July weekend.
The Kensington neighborhood, ‘ground zero’ for the city’s drug epidemic, is seen strewn with trash and addicts injecting drugs in the middle of the day.
The disaster has been fueled by the rise of the drug Xylazine, known as ‘tranq’ – a lethal sedative that is used to enhance the effects of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine.
Philadelphia has become overwhelmed by drug-fueled crime under Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner, a self-described ‘progressive prosecutor.’
His failure to crack down led to his impeachment in 2022 for ‘dereliction of duty’, however he remains in office after his trial was indefinitely postponed.
Disturbing images show a depressing sight in Philadelphia as drug users and the homeless litter the streets of the City of Brotherly Love over Fourth of July weekend
It’s a situation fueled by the rise of the drug Xylazine, also known as ‘tranq’ – a lethal sedative that is often used to enhance the effects of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine
The new footage shows addicts shooting up or passed out on the sidewalk
The latest evidence is captured in photos and video of the Kensington neighborhood, overrun with addicts, garbage and drug paraphernalia.
Addicts are seen injecting drugs into their legs, their arms and necks in broad daylight in the middle of the sidewalk.
Emaciated homeless people are passed out in the street next to empty bottles and plastic bags.
Crime has soared by a fifth in Philadelphia compared to last year, with theft among the law-breaking which has made the problem persistent.
Homeless people and drug addicts are often driven to petty theft as a way to find sustain themselves or scrape enough money together to supply their addictions.
Footage by Dailymail.com back in May revealed the scale of Philadelphia’s untamed ‘tranq’ epidemic, which has transformed the city’s streets into a drug-infested hellhole.
Just two months later, images show that the situation is the same.
Gruesome scenes in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ show droves of homeless addicts aimlessly staggering through the streets, surrounded by tents and scattered trash.
One person gave Dailymail.com an inside look into the harrowing situation, explaining ‘people are starving, people are overdosing.’
‘I’ve had to do CPR on five people out here. We have found three dead bodies, people just stepping over bodies that are laying there. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve had to do Narcan, uh, for folks,’ the person said.
The person added that the addicts are flocking from California and New York and other areas of the United States.
‘You know, when I, when we come from Virginia, people are like, why are you going to Philly? It’s a Philadelphia problem. Like, this is an America problem and it’s coming to a city near you if we don’t do something about it because, um, people are literally coming from all over the east coast because they know they can come here and use and they won’t, they won’t get in trouble for it.’
Footage by Dailymail.com back in May revealed the scale of Philadelphia’s untamed ‘tranq’ epidemic, which has transformed the city’s streets into a drug-infested hellhole
Addicts are seen in photos passed out on the sidewalks and others go about their business
Tranq can be consumed in a number of ways as it is mixed with other substances to enhance its ‘high’ – which has a similar effect to other opioid drugs
Users are seen smoking, snorting, injecting, swallowing and inhaling the drug, with some even seen injecting it between the toes in their feet
The same person also talked about addicts shooting up in the middle of the day.
‘You’ll see people with like mirrors, they’ll put a mirror on a tree and they’ll just walk right up and shoot up in the neck,’ they said.
‘Ground zero, hell on Earth,’ the person responded when asked about the situation. ‘Um, largest open air, or it’s the only open air narcotic market on the East coast where, um, you know, people are allowed to buy, sell, used prostitute. Uh, and it’s, it’s just allowed, you know, there’s, there’s no regulation.’
Overall crime in the City of Brotherly Love is up 17. 7 percent compared to the same time last year, according to stats compiled by the Philadelphia Police Department.
Theft is up 5.7 percent compared to the same time last year. But homicides, shooting victims, rape and robbery were all down compared to the same time last year.
Overall crime in the City of Brotherly Love is up 17. 7 percent compared to the same time last year, according to stats compiled by the Philadelphia Police Department
Gruesome scenes in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ show droves of homeless addicts
The addicts imlessly staggering through the streets, surrounded by tents and scattered trash
The effects of the drug appear very similar to that of an overdose, as victims suffer from an uncontrolled stupor of sedation, slowed breathing and unconsciousness
The sidewalks are more reminiscent of a scene from the Walking Dead than a bustling metro
Earlier this year, disturbing photographs obtained by DailyMail.com laid bare the scale of the city’s tragic drug problem.
Amid a flood of the popular and dangerous drug, the sidewalks are more reminiscent of a scene from the Walking Dead than a bustling metro.
Tranq can be consumed in a number of ways as it is mixed with other substances to enhance its ‘high’ – which has a similar effect to other opioid drugs.
Users are seen smoking, snorting, injecting, swallowing and inhaling the drug, with some even seen injecting it between the toes in their feet.
The effects of the drug appear very similar to that of an overdose, as victims suffer from an uncontrolled stupor of sedation, slowed breathing and unconsciousness.
The above map shows the percentage change in drug overdose deaths by state across the US. Each has seen a rise except for Hawaii. In Oklahoma deaths did not increase or decrease compared to previous years
Deaths caused by fentanyl in the US surged in the 2010s. At the start of the decade, 2,666 Americans died of a fentanyl overdose. This figure shot up to 19,413 by 2016. Covid made the situation worse, with a record 72,484 deaths recorded in 2021
Xylazine also often causes raw, gaping wounds on its victims, many of whom are found suffering from gruesome injuries while they lay among garbage and syringes.
Startling figures also found that tranq had been found in more than 90 percent of fentanyl samples in Philadelphia, and emergency rooms have reportedly seen skin and soft tissue injuries increase four-fold in the last three years.
Philadelphia is not alone in its struggle to contain rampant drug addiction.
In 2021, there were over 107,000 deaths from drug overdoses, an increase of nearly 15 percent from the year prior.
National trends indicate the numbers of drug deaths continue to soar, with tranq and fentanyl ‘zombies’ slumped on streets across America.
‘This is the picture of addiction… This is what happens’: Mother of xylazine overdose victim describes her son’s addiction
Nora Sheehan lost her son Andrew Jugler, 29, in October, 2021, after he took a deadly concoction of xylazine and fentanyl following an eight-year battle with addiction.
She said her son’s addiction began after he started taking the oxycontin painkiller in 2010, but then gradually progressed to heroin and fentanyl.
In the wake of her loss, Sheehan, 56, shared a photo of her last moments with her son on social media to try and raise awareness about the devastating impact of the opioid crisis.
Nora Sheehan, 56, lost her son Andrew Jugler, 29, in October, 2021, after he took a deadly concoction of the Xylazine and fentanyl following an eight-year battle with addiction
‘Holding my dead son in my arms, this is the picture of addiction… This is what happens,’ caption Sheehan, from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
The administrative coordinator feared for her son when he joined a group living in the woods in Elkton, Maryland last summer at the height of his addiction.
Andrew Jugler, 29, died in 2021 of a xylazine overdose after an eight-year battle with addiction
She and Andrew’s two sisters, Candace Jugler, 38, and Haley Jugler, 30, tried to enroll him in a rehab program but failed.
She said: ‘When he moved to the woods I asked him if I could buy him a new tent or a new sleeping bag but he refused. I begged him to come home.
‘While I was trying to drive Andrew to a detox center in September he opened the door while my car was going 60 miles per hour as if to throw himself out.
‘I stopped the car and started screaming. I asked him in that moment where he wanted to be buried.’
The 29-year-old died on October 7 but it was two days before Ms Sheehan could identify her son’s body.
Ms Sheehan said: ‘I couldn’t grieve until I saw him. Until then I had been holding out hope.
‘They told me to prepare for the smell in the room, because his body had been outside for a while in the hot weather.
‘That was the farthest thing from my mind. I wanted to hold him and hug him one last time.
‘Andrew was incredibly kind and caring. He was a self-made mechanic and so loved by all of us, by his sisters and his niece and his stepdad.’
Instead of a traditional funeral service, Ms Sheehan and her family held a memorial service in his name and invited Andrew’s friends, who were battling homelessness and addiction.
She added: ‘I hope that sharing this image will impact addicts but mainly I hope the rest of us stop walking around blindly.
‘I never thought heroin and fentanyl were as prevalent in my community as they are. It’s an epidemic.’
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