I live just a short drive away from the Kensington neighborhood, which is said to be home to the largest open-air drug market in America. I've lived here for 15 years, and the spillover effects just get worse. Drug addicts at every intersection, every drug store, every drive-thru window, holding up signs and asking for donations. People shooting up on the street, nodding off, bent over. I pity the people in the area who have to use public transit, because addicts congregate at all the local stations.
Crime is everywhere, because after all, addicts need money.
That's why Mehmet Oz, who's running for the Senate against John Fetterman and is 10 points behind in the polls, decided he'd drop in for a photo op yesterday.
Now, what most of America doesn't know is, the human beings in Kensington absolutely hate him, and I want you to appreciate the irony of him showing up and pretending to care.
See, back in 2017, this man showed up to do an episode for his TV show: "Let's look at the animals in the zoo!" But that wasn't all. He famously gave an addict $10 to go buy some heroin -- so his crew could film him shooting up.
He also hyped what national media always does, which amounts to a travel piece: "Philadelphia has the cheapest, purest heroin in America." There was a huge influx into the area after his episode ran -- just as there is when the NY Times or the L.A. Times writes about it. Thanks, guys!
After he highlighted the dangerous encampment near local train tracks where homeless addicts lived in squalor, the city broke it up -- which scattered violent crime throughout the neighborhood instead. Here's what the area looks like now:
Philadelphia is a very poor city with pockets of middle-class to very rich people. The city is always scrambling for resources. I don't know what they can or should do about the addicts, because I don't know of any city that has successfully dealt with this problem. (The city has tried to open safe injection sites, but terrified neighborhoods rejected them.)
But I do know one thing: We don't need motherf*cking carpetbaggers like Oz coming here to make it worse.
