This is the second story in a series about the open air drug market in Kensington. read the first here.
PHILADELPHIA – As overdose deaths continue to rise in Pennsylvania, a man walks the streets of a drug-ridden neighborhood hoping to keep addicts from dying, and maybe even help them turn their lives around.
Kensington, commonly known as an open-air drug market, is ground zero for Philadelphia’s opioid crisis. There, Frank Rodriguez wakes up the addicts passed out on the sidewalks, making sure they don’t overdose.
LOOK: ACTIVIST WALKS AROUND THE PHILADELPHIA OUTDOOR DRUG MARKET
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“I see drug addiction. You know, I see drug dealing. I see violence. I see poverty,” the recovering addict previously told Fox News. “Most of all, I see pain.”
In 2021, a Pennsylvanian died about every two hours from a drug overdose, according to preliminary data the state updated last week. Almost 80% of those involved fentanyl.
And like most states, Pennsylvania saw a huge jump in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns, with Keystone State facing 5,347 overdoses in 2021, an increase of nearly 20% from 2019.
WATCH: SAN FRANCISCO ACTIVIST EXPOSES ‘KIDNAPPED’ BUS STOPS AS ‘OUTDOOR DRUG MARKETS’
For Rodríguez, an overdose played an essential role in his sobriety and eventual activism. During a relapse after a brief recovery period, she experienced her own overdose.
“I woke up in the hospital three days later,” Rodriguez, who grew up and lived in Kensington for years, previously said.
The Brooklyn native then went to rehab where he sat in the front row taking notes.
Now, Rodríguez returns to Kensington to help addicts. He provides free haircuts and posts testimonials from suffering drug users on his YouTube channel “Morals Over Money” in an attempt to humanize them.
But when he sees an addict passed out on the sidewalk, Rodríguez recalls his own experience.
Frank Rodríguez films testimonials from addicts in an effort to remind viewers that they are still people and that they are suffering. (FoxNews)
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“For me, that’s why I see people overdosing and I see people stretched out and lying down and I want to go there and say ‘are you okay?'” Rodriguez previously told Fox News. “That was all it took to change my life completely, 180 degrees.”
“Maybe there are other people who are like that too. And maybe not, but…” he said, trailing off.
To hear Rodriguez detail the horrors of Philadelphia’s open-air drug market, click here.
