During the first weekend of December, nine people died of apparent drug overdoses in and around Kensington, a neighborhood in northern Philadelphia.
Those deaths came just weeks after the city, which has become a “mecca” for addicts, saw 50 overdoses — five of them fatal — in one day on November 17.
Philadelphia’s overdose deaths have put the city on pace to hit 900 fatal overdoses this year, a 30% increase over last year and a number that would triple the city’s homicide rate, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
