Businesses in the Democrat-run city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have begun using unconventional methods to protect their stores from the skyrocketing numbers of drug addicts roaming the streets, according to a recovering addict who spoke with Fox News.
Frank Rodriguez, a former addict who got sober and became a motivational speaker and independent journalist, told Fox News Digital that the city has become a difficult place for businesses to thrive.
“The businesses don’t last long. When they are put in the community, the community tends to tear them down. It’s not a place for anything to thrive,” he told the outlet, according to the article published Wednesday.
Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood has been hit especially hard by rising open-air drug markets, which has been especially difficult for the families living in the area. One of the most damaging problems the area is facing is a relatively new drug known on the streets as “tranq.” The drug, which has been described as a “zombie drug” because it can eat a person’s flesh,” is an animal tranquilizer called Xylazine.
“The city has been grappling with a rise in addicts using the drug called Xylazine, which is also referred to as ‘tranq,’” Breitbart News reported back in May, noting that the dangerous drug has been linked to overdose deaths.
According to Pix 11 News, while Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer that “knocks out horses,” it is now “knocking out humans and sometimes killing them.”
As “tranq” is relatively cheap and easily available, drug suppliers have begun lacing fentanyl and heroin with it.
Rodriguez, who used to deal drugs and use drugs but has since left that life, told Fox News that businesses have begun setting “booby traps” to try to deter drug addicts from loitering around their stores.
“They have to set up these crazy little hacks and booby traps just to keep people off of their stoops. There are businesses that set up sprinkler systems, so they can just be inside and hit a button, and the sprinkler system goes off,” he told the outlet.
Fox News host Jesse Watters played some of Rodriguez’s footage on his show earlier this month, as he discussed the fact that China and Mexico are to blame for these drugs being shipped into the United States.
“You see the chaos that’s going around. You’re gonna see people, blood running down their arm, needles in their neck, needle in their arm, pipe in their mouth. Everything goes out here,” Rodriguez said in the footage.
Watters then explained that “China is sending us the fentanyl; the Mexicans are trafficking it here,” and argued that President Joe Biden is doing “absolutely nothing about it.”
Philadelphia is rotting from the inside out. Frank Rodriguez, independent journalist and motivational speaker, says drug dealers and their suppliers are waging full-blown chemical warfare. pic.twitter.com/5DMEhreZv0
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 10, 2023
