According to data provided by the Health Department, during last year testing of overdose victims persons increasingly revealed fentanyl mixed with other drug types, including stimulants, hallucinogens, and synthetic cannabinoids.

From the first quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2020, overdose deaths involving the stimulant methamphetamine in combination with fentanyl increased 350%. Over that same timeframe, deaths involving the hallucinogen PCP and fentanyl increased 1,333%.

You can read: Opioid addiction, the other Pennsylvania pandemic

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 is expected to have had the highest number of unintentional drug overdose deaths of any single year in the city. As of September 30, 2020, 950 unintentional overdose deaths were preliminarily reported, 13% and 11% higher than the number reported during the same time period in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Eighty-one percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2020 have involved fentanyl, the highest proportion ever reported.

Dr. Kendra Viner, director of the Health Department’s Substance Use Prevention and Harm Reduction division said, “Until recently, fentanyl was primarily being found in place of heroin and most drug sales involving fentanyl were occurring in Kensington and South Philadelphia. We focused most of our outreach efforts on a subpopulation of drug users in two specific geographic regions.”

High risk of overdose

“Now fentanyl is in everything and everyone who obtains drugs from an illicit source is potentially at risk. To respond we will need to ensure that all Philadelphians who use drugs are aware of the danger that this drug poses and what they can do to protect themselves,” Viner added.

Fentanyl is also being used as pills that resemble prescription opioids or benzodiazepines. While fentanyl has been in Philadelphia’s heroin supply for several years, its presence in non-opioid drugs and counterfeit pills is especially concerning since those who prefer these drugs may have had little exposure to such a potent opioid and the risk of overdose may be higher.

In order to mitigate the nocive impact of this drug on city residents, the Health Department announced that it will begin a community education initiative to spread awareness and prevent overdoses resulting from these drug mixtures. This initiative will involve delivering educational materials through street outreach, distributing fentanyl test strips and naloxone to people using various drugs, and launching a city-wide media campaign in early 2021.

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According to an Associated Press report, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Monday that agents executed search warrants last week in 30 locations believed to be connected to the organizations, whose activities he said have been linked to two Philadelphia-area shootings.

Drugs sold by the groups have been located as far away as Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Virginia as well as Pennsylvania, he said.

You can read: Dismantled methamphetamine drug ring that operated in Bucks County

Shapiro also released the names of almost three dozen people he said were among those arrested.

The probe was part of the Kensington initiative, a local, state and federal law enforcement partnership targeting major criminal drug organizations in the northeast Philadelphia neighborhood.

The post Authorities’ investigation in Kensington netted drugs, 20 weapons and $480,000 appeared first on El Sol News Media.

 ABC and the WPVI-TV Action News section of Philadelphia, gathered the opinion of several experts in therapeutic matters regarding the location of the largest cache of cocaine found in the city. One of them said: “It’s like hell coming to the city streets”.

The United States is currently in a feverish battle against the epidemic caused by the opioids abuse, which according to the Philadelphia health authorities, at least in that city the life expectancy of its inhabitants is decreasing.

The counselors’ fear is that the extreme focus on handling opiates, has not allowed the authorities in general to see the progressive resurgence of “traditional” or out-of-fashion drugs.

The 16.5 tons seizure of cocaine at the Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia seems to be nothing more than the confirmation of the therapist’s fear who also follows historical police data.

The seizure of approximately 992 pounds of cocaine at the port of Philadelphia was reported last May.

Another raid in the Port of Philadelphia in March seized a total of 450 bricks of cocaine, weighing 1,185 pounds and with a street value of $38 million. At the time, authorities said it was their largest cocaine bust in the Philadelphia port in 21 years.

“Speedballing” in the highlight

ABC’s work consulted the opinion of Lisa Hutt, a drug counselor who knows first- hand the dangers of cocaine. She couldn’t believe such a huge shipment would be headed to the Port of Philadelphia.” It’s like hell coming to the city streets,” Hutt said.

And while this is a historic cocaine seizure, a record for Philadelphia, it is indicative of the enormous appetite for the drug in the United States and Europe.

“The drug dealers are actually mixing fentanyl and crack cocaine to keep people addicted and to keep people buying it,” Hutt said.

Mary Doherty, another therapist consulted of CORA Services, Inc., said that “what you may have heard is that people are using cocaine to break their heroin habit”.

But, it’s not a completely new concept. Some may remember the phrase used in the drug world known as “speedballing,” the combination of heroin and cocaine.

“So heroin depresses your central nervous system, cocaine speeds it up. So either way, they’re both deadly. Put them together, they´re more deadlier,” Doherty said.

America has been spending a lot of money at interdicting drugs and treating symptoms, but Doherty does not think we have done enough at addressing what is driving a person’s need for such drugs.

“It’s a sense of loneliness and a detachment, and a sense of purpose and ‘I don’t belong, I’m different and I’m sad´” Doherty said.

Drug counselors have been focused on treating the epidemic of opioid addicts, but many knew that someday there would be a resurgence of some drugs. Their doubts confirmation: The Packer Marine Terminal historic seizure of cocaine in Philadelphia.

Translated by: José Espinoza

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