Published November 12, 2023
Philadelphia ushered in a new era on Tuesday, electing its first female mayor, Cherelle Parker, who vowed to employ strong law enforcement measures, including calling on the National Guard, to tackle the city’s rampant open-air drug markets.
During a town hall in recent weeks, Parker responded to a resident’s plea to clean up Kensington, the nerve center of the nation’s opioid crisis, home to a vast population of drug addicts and notorious for its open-air drug market, Fox News reported.
“Will I call on them to help us, for example, shut down the open-air drug market in Kensington that’s being allowed to prevail?” Parker echoed the constituent’s question, affirming unequivocally that the National Guard will be instrumental to her strategy.
In conversation with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Parker laid out her plan to implement a robust intergovernmental approach to orchesterate the clean up of Kensington and put an end to the open-air drug market, an area where addicts openly inject substances and frequently collapse on sidewalks or streets. It’s a locale sought after by users for fentanyl and xylazine, an inexpensive but lethal veterinary tranquilizer found in over 90% of drug samples examined in Philadelphia, based on 2021 city data.
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SOURCE: www.thegatewaypundit.com
RELATED: Liberal Mayor elect wants National Guard to shutter open-air drug markets
National Guard will play a role in cleaning up Philadelphia’s open-air drug markets: incoming mayor
Drug users gather around Kensington Avenue. Some are injecting themselves with needles and one user is slumped over on a stoop. (Megan Myers and Jon Michael Raasch/Fox News Digital)
Published November 8, 2023
Philadelphia elected a mayor Tuesday who said she would use the National Guard to crack down on the city’s open-air drug markets.
During a town hall last month, a city resident asked Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, if she would call on the National Guard to clean up the city’s Kensington neighborhood, which is home to scores of drug addicts and is considered one of the epicenters of the nation’s opioid epidemic.
“Will I call on them to help us, for example, shut down the open-air drug market in Kensington that’s being allowed to prevail?” Parker asked the voter. “They will be a part of the solution.”
Parker told the Philadelphia Inquirer she wants “a strong intergovernmental approach to address the crisis ongoing in Kensington” and that she will “put an end to the open-air drug market and drug use residents are being forced to live with.”
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SOURCE: www.FoxNews.com
RELATED: Congratulations, Mayor Parker. Now don’t call in the National Guard.
As a mother, I beg you to give our children another chance to heal. They are good people with a bad disease. They need help, not judgment.
Published November 12, 2023
This week, Philadelphia elected its 100th mayor, Cherelle Parker, a politician who has said that calling in the National Guard will be “a part of the solution” to shut down the open-air drug market in Kensington.
This is a big show of power, but it solves nothing. How will bringing in the National Guard help anyone heal? How will it stop the rise of overdoses? Or halt the spread of disease? Or lessen the chaos?
As a mother, I am aware of how distasteful and alien addiction is to most people. Addiction was the last thing I wanted for my child, and I did everything I could think of to provide stability and support to my children: homemade meals, story time, museum trips, tennis lessons, art classes, kayaking with Outward Bound, and unconditional love. My children were raised in Narberth and, later, Roxborough. They went through the Lower Merion school system.
But my humble offerings were no match for the Sackler family’s legalized heroin.
In 2009, when my son was 16 years old, he called me at work and pleaded for me to come home. He said he needed to tell me something. By the sound of his voice, I knew it was serious. I asked what was wrong. I told him I’d come home, but I needed to know what was going on.
Through tears, he told me he was a drug addict.
