Because statistics can’t accurately depict the devastation from illicit drugs that are devouring our nation, one news outlet has taken it upon itself to document its effects in some of the hardest-hit communities in America.
In a video so graphic it will make you wince, DailyMail.com took to the streets of Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Boston, New York City, Connecticut and New Hampshire, and New Orleans and filmed “‘zombied’ fentanyl and tranq users” collapsing “on needle-littered streets.”
*WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC*
(Video: DailyMail.com)
“There were 107,622 deaths from drug overdoses in the US in 2021, an increase of nearly 15 percent from the year prior, and shocking national trends show few signs of the crisis abating,” the outlet reports.
“There’s no end in sight” for the fentanyl epidemic, the Daily Mail states, noting that a dose of the powerful opiate small enough to fit on a pencil tip is deadly.
And that’s not the only drug damaging Americans in droves.
“The animal sedative Xylazine – known as ‘tranq’ – is now exacerbating the crisis,” according to the outlet. “It’s often combined with fentanyl and its horrific effects cause visceral ‘flesh-eating’ abscesses and addicts to zonk out as they lose feeling in their muscles.”
In Seattle, Wash., a state “ranked third worst in the U.S. for drug use disorder,” the Daily Mail says authorities “have had to warn that people using drugs should assume that ‘any drugs bought on the street, online, or from a friend has fentanyl’.”
“Drug-related deaths in 2021 surpassed 2,000 – a staggering 66 percent increase for Washington compared to two years prior,” it reports.
“You can drive down the street and see somebody who has obviously just used fentanyl and can barely stand and is bent over and looks like they’re about ready to collapse,” Captain Steve Strand, commander of the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct, told the Seattle Times.
“And when you come back in the other direction 15 minutes later, they’re up and walking around like nothing happened,” he added. “Then they’re back to finding the next one.”
Things are so bad, according to the Daily Mail, that Washington state officials “made the terrifying announcement that they have run out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drug tears through local communities.”
Making things worse is Seattle’s decision to make the possession of hard drugs, including cocaine, meth, and heroin, a misdemeanor.
Philadelphia, the Daily Mail reveals, is “the epicenter for tranq, which has rapidly made its way into the city’s drug supply as a cheap and very potent cutting agent.”
Xylazine was found in more than 90 percent of the city’s fentanyl samples.
“Shocking images taken by DailyMail.com in the City of Brotherly Love show vulnerable people in a trance-like state, unaware of their limbs, unable to move, and sprawled on the ground,” the outlet reports. “Unbothered drug users were also seen shooting up – using needles injected into their necks – while casually sitting on benches near McPherson Square Park – aptly known by locals as ‘Needle Park.'”
And so it goes, in city after city.
In Sacramento, the Daily Mail found that “drug users continue to smoke fentanyl on the streets, in clear view of commuters, families, and children.”
San Francisco locals feel “the city has turned ‘dystopian’ – where drug users are seen bent over, taking narcotics in the middle of the day.”
Last week in Portland, “police seized rainbow fentanyl from a Portland motel room as part of a major drug trafficking sting.”
“This discovery is feared to be just the tip of the iceberg,” the Daily Mail explains. “Law enforcement is desperately trying to cut off major illicit distributors of the drug trade coming from Mexico.”
Portland police see “no end in sight.”
Over in Boston, “users are seen shooting up with needles in plain sight – in parking lots or in their makeshift camps on the sidewalk. Disheveled users struggle to keep their bodies upright after taking the potentially fatal hit, and ease the blow by perching on plastic boxes.”
In New York City, the outlet continues, “the fentanyl epidemic has seemingly taken over – with people brazenly becoming ‘zombies’ in daylight.”
In Connecticut, the Daily Mail found “users smoking fentanyl and snorting other narcotic substances on the green outside Yale University – one of the country’s most prestigious education centers,” while, in Manchester, New Hampshire, “one woman collapsed on the steps of a building was surrounded by police officers attempting to help her.”
And things are no better in the Big Easy, where ” narcotics killed 492 in the city in 2022, when the same figure seven years earlier was just 92.”
It’s a jaw-dropping report from DailyMail.com — a video that is painful to watch, but more painful to ignore.
And once you have seen it, the statistics surrounding America’s drug crisis suddenly take on a deeper sense of urgency.
“US drug agents seized 379 million potentially fatal does of fentanyl in 2022 – enough to kill every American,” the Daily Mail reports.
“It was the major reason for the more than 107,000 overdose deaths across the United States from July 2021 to June 2022, according to official data.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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