SThey are hunched over, their arms dangling, they stumble on the sidewalks and streets, they have collapsed in the gutter between parked cars, sometimes with a syringe still in their arm. They huddle in doorways, desperately trying to find another vein in their battered arms, covered in open sores and sores. Street scenes on Kensington Avenue in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
This is one of the major transshipment points for the deadly drug fentanyl. A serving is dirt cheap, five dollars. It is incredibly powerful, fifty times stronger than heroin and extremely addictive, much more so than heroin. Most users need another shot every two hours and up to ten times a day. A quantity of two milligrams is fatal. In 2022, an estimated 900 people died from an overdose on Kensington Avenue. Originally it was used to dilute heroin to make it stronger. Nowadays it is sold straight, often mixed with the horse tranquilizer Xzylazin, known on the street as “Tranq.” This means the high lasts a little longer. But “tranq dope” is even more toxic than fentanyl. It causes ulcers and open wounds that smell and attract flies, often leading to amputations. Nobody knows what proportion the drugs are mixed in. Taking “a shot” has become a kind of Russian roulette.
The aid organization Prevention Point has its headquarters in the middle of Kensington Avenue. She specifically takes care of the addicted population in the area. There is medical help and fresh needles. All volunteers receive a small blue bag containing the opioid blocker Narcan. Paramedics and police officers also carry it with them. It is administered nasally to bring drug users back to the realm of the living after an overdose.
But some drug users are upset when recovering from an overdose because someone has put an end to their high. A perverse form of consumption are so-called Lazarus parties, named after the biblical figure who rose from the dead. A user intentionally overdoses in the company of his friends who carry Narcan to bring him back to life.
Marina, a young woman with pink hair, began using drugs at the age of 16. She now finances her addiction through prostitution. But she is currently broke because she was robbed. She also has a foul-smelling ulcer on her legs, but she doesn't dare go to the doctor because she's afraid she might lose her leg. And who wants to take a limping girl with them, she says. Some of her friends have now ended up in wheelchairs.
Also Daniella, sitting in her wheelchair under the Lehigh Avenue Bridge. She takes fentanyl to relieve the pain from the open wounds on her legs. She was turned away from a hospital, told she wasn't an emergency, and told she should stop taking drugs. But she couldn't do that. She sees no future and expects to die under this bridge.
A drug addict collapsed in front of the entrance to an electronics store.
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Image: Teun Voeten
A woman under the elevated train on Kensington Avenue.
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Image: Teun Voeten
People sit in front of the McPherson Square Library not far from Kensington Avenue.
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Image: Teun Voeten
A drug addict drags himself through traffic.
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Image: Teun Voeten
A drug addict staggers across the sidewalk.
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Image: Teun Voeten
Drug addicts live along Kensington Avenue.
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Image: Teun Voeten
Fentanyl is being trafficked in the blue envelopes scattered across the floor.
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Image: Teun Voeten
A person passed out at Harrogate Park station.
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Image: Teun Voeten
After a dose of fentanyl, a man sits slumped in a subway.
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Image: Teun Voeten
After one of the frequent shootings, a police officer secures the crime scene with crime scene tape.
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Image: Teun Voeten
A young woman makes a “shot” of fentanyl and tranq, drugs she just bought from a homeless man.
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Image: Teun Voeten
Image: Teun Voeten
Marina uses fentanyl with Tranq and complains of open wounds on her legs. Behind her, a drug-addled man writhes. .
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Image: Teun Voeten
Daniella lives under a bridge sitting in a wheelchair. She can no longer walk because of ulcers on her legs. They were caused by the drug additive Tranq. Not only is she addicted to fentanyl, she also needs it as a painkiller.
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Image: Teun Voeten
Dutch-born photojournalist and anthropologist Teun Voeten lives in New York and Brussels. He has been traveling to war and crisis regions around the world for decades and not only reports on military conflicts. The fate of refugees, homelessness, drug crime and social problems of drug addicts are also the focus of his work, which led to book publications. His research into the opiate crisis in the United States took him to Kensington Avenue three times, most recently in 2023.
#Worse #Drug #Heroin #Fentanyl #Apocalypse #Philadelphia
