Tag Archives: #Drugs

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Throwing good money after bad

It was thanks to Robert Stacy McCain that I saw this tweet from the Defender of the Republic.

Britney Spears has a guesstimated net worth of $60 million, according to Forbes, or perhaps a paltry $40 million, estimated by Celebrity Net Worth. The Defender wondered why no one could help a clearly wealthy and attractive woman. I know virtually nothing about Miss Spears, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is that no one has helped her because she doesn’t want to be helped.

Which brings me to the more serious:

Only two people have successfully completed the Kensington ‘wellness court’ so far. The Parker administration wants to expand it.

Nearly two-thirds of the more than 40 people brought before the court since late January have dropped out of treatment within days, and then failed to appear at follow-up hearings.

Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right

It was seven months ago that we noted The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold‘s article on how oh-so-well-intended “harm reduction” measures were actually hurting the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.

(Sonja Bingham’s, a 55-year-old mother of three, and local Kensington activist) problem is not just with the hundreds of drug users camped out in Kensington—her neighborhood in northeast Philly that’s been dubbed ground zero for the city’s opioid crisis. It’s with an ecosystem of activists that call themselves “harm reductionists.”

Those who advocate for harm reduction — a Biden-endorsed policy that prioritizes users’ safety over their sobriety or abstinence — say they’re helping fix the problem. But when I visited Kensington last month, Bingham and almost a dozen other residents told me that the activists are actually the ones causing it.

Even The Wall Street Journal noted what a disaster Kensington has been, and how the city’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has tried to stymie Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plans to clean up the blighted area, and now we have a new complaint, this time in The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right

It was 6½ months ago that we published “Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right,” noting Olivia Reingold‘s report that addiction activists say they’re ‘reducing harm’ in Philly, but Kensington locals say they’re causing it. It was an article noting that the oh-so-well-intended activists trying to help junkies — we’re not willing to use the less loaded term “addicts” any more than necessary — are actually harming the larger community around them. We also snarked that Miss Reongold’s article would never, ever, have been published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the ever-soft-hearted liberal newspaper.

And here they go again:

Banning mobile care in Kensington could lead to amputations, hospitalizations, maybe even deaths

No shirt, no shoes, no wound care? A bill proposing a ban on mobile services runs counter to best health care practices, writes street wound care nurse and researcher Eleanor Turi.

Continue reading →

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! But, but, but, recreational drug offenses are victimless crimes!

Dominique Billups, photo by Philadelphia Police Department, via KYW News. No, of course The Philadelphia Inquirer would not publish her mugshot.

There has been something of an internet sensation, though perhaps not as much as I’d have expected, over a woman shooting a seven-month-old infant in a stroller.

None of the characters in this sad tale are a benefit to civilized society.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Police cite $100 drug debt as the reason behind the shooting of a 7-month-old; alleged shooter ID’d

Police said the parents fled the scene without their wounded child because both had open warrants.

by Max Marin | Saturday, July 20, 2024 | 3:09 PM EDT

A 28-year-old woman has been charged in the shooting of a 7-month-old infant in the city’s Holmesburg section on Thursday night that police say stemmed from a $100 drug debt with the child’s parents.

Police arrested Dominique Billups, of Northeast Philadelphia, Friday night and authorities charged her with three counts of aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless engagement, and related offenses, Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum said at a news conference Saturday. Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right.

My good friends at The Philadelphia Inquirer have, as we have previously noted, been giving OpEd and other space to those criticizing Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ harder line on the open-air drug markets and junkies sleeping on the streets in Kensington.

Well, here they go again!

Drug deaths and overdoses plague Philly jails, raising concerns about plans to step up Kensington arrests

Since 2018, 25 people have died drug-related deaths in Philly jails, where drugs are widely accessible. As the city plans to arrest more drug users in Kensington, that has compounded safety concerns.

Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right "Nice guy" policies have led to disaster in our urban areas

We have previously reported on how almost everyone supports drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation, but they prefer it to be in other people’s neighborhoods, and how even in Democrat-controlled Philadelphia, the City Council passed an ordinance which bans ‘safe injection centers in all council districts except one. We alson noted that, despite residential opposition, the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer have supported the concept of ‘safe injection centers and been opposed to efforts to ban drug treatment centers in specific neighborhoods.

Well, here they go again! Continue reading →

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Decades of nice, kind, and sympathetic government has turned Kensington into what it is today Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right.

It was just six days previously that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to Jose Demarco to criticize Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ decision that the City of Brotherly Love would no longer publicly fund syringe exchange programs to further enable junkies. Then, they did it again: Continue reading →

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Decades of nice, kind, and sympathetic government has turned Kensington into what it is today

It was just Monday that we noted that Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right: “Nice guy” policies have led to disaster in Philly. And on the same day, The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to a homosexual and HIV activist who uses “they/them” pronouns to decry one of Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ policies:

Mayor Cherelle Parker is losing progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS

If the mayor and the Kensington Caucus make it harder or impossible for people in Kensington to access clean syringes, they will have thousands of new HIV infections on their consciences.

by Jose DeMarco | Monday, March 25, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT Continue reading →

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Killadelphia: The area “was littered with shell casings.”

If bullets fly in Kensington, is it really news?

700 block of East Madison Street. Photo via Google Maps, August 2019. Click to enlarge.

Kensington and Independence Mall-area shootings leave two dead, three wounded

The Kensington shootings occurred in an area long burdened by gun violence.

by Anthony R Wood | Saturday, August 26, 2023 | 11:07 PM EDT

A 39-year-old man was shot to death and two others were critically wounded late Saturday afternoon in a triple shooting in Kensington, police said.Several hours later, police said, a double shooting occurred in the Independence Mall area, leaving one man dead and another wounded.

The first shooting occurred just before 5 p.m. in the 700 block of East Madison Street, not far from the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, in an area that has been more burdened by gun violence than any other in the city.

The 700 block of East Madison is a racially-integrated, semi-dilapidated rowhouse street, with several homes in which the owners have literally put themselves in jail, adding security bars to keep people off of their front porches. Extremely narrow, cars are shown parked entirely on the sidewalk on the left-hand side of the street, as the one-way traffic flows, and partially on the sidewalk on the right-hand side.

A check of the real estate site Zillow shows that 711 East Madison is for sale, for a list price of $59,900, a 750 ft² home built in 1920, and being sold “as is.” No photos of the inside are available. Zillow’s map shows virtually every home in the neighborhood that is listed for sale is listed for under six digits. Continue reading →