The great Bruce Springsteen composed a hymn in 1993, the soundtrack to the movie Streets of Philadelphia. It won the Oscar for Best Original Song. In it he painted the drama of drugs in the city in the background.
“He was hurt and battered. I was unrecognizable as myself. I saw my reflection in a window and didn’t recognize my face. Hey brother, will you wreck me? On the streets of Philly.” The boss was already giving an alarm signal about what was happening in the city. But perhaps he could not have imagined that in 2023, the neighborhood of Kensington – with English and Irish heritage and considered the banner of the working class – would literally become the most terrifying zombie city on the planet.
People passing by are scared. Hundreds of people lying on the road, completely gone and intoxicated. Residents explain that there are rapes, robberies, that they kill and rob each other.
Also, it is amazing to see people of all ages stooped, motionless and standing for hours with the same posture, as if they are in a trance, asleep but with their eyes open. They are lost people, addicted to drugs, roaming like corpses.
But what is the reason for this bleak picture? OK, Fentanyl. It’s the most dangerous drug in America right now, a synthetic opiate. It is sold in the form of tablets mixed with many substances. A dose costs five dollars, but its effect is very powerful. In fact, as little as two milligrams can be fatal.
Of the 108,000 deaths in the United States last year, 70,000 were caused by the drug. Presidents of various countries around the world, such as Colombian Gustavo Petro, are already sending messages of extreme concern: “Fentanal is already a kind of epidemic,” he explained on his recent visit to Madrid.
But this zombie drug does not live in the United States, there is already evidence that it has come to our country. Two studies by the Hospital del Mar and the German Trois i Pujol hospital have found traces of fentanyl. Out of 187 volunteers, they were located in 16 samples, 8.6% of the total.
Along with this, the investigation in the de-addiction area of Toledo Hospital has also revealed that seven out of twenty-nine fentanyl samples were found positive in three days. It is clear that there is already zombie medicine within our borders.
Fentanyl reaches these users through cocaine. And it is that the producer associations have realized its profitability and are mixing it with all kinds of medicines. This causes those who buy into it to enter an annoying endless spiral in which they need ever higher doses to satisfy their anxiety. More doses mean more money for the drug dealers, which is why the business is growing at an alarming rate.
Currently in Spain it can only be obtained by prescription, as it has proven very useful to control all kinds of pain. Precisely its use has led some patients to become addicted to drugs that contain this substance. Dr. Ana Isabel Henche from the Addictive Behaviors Unit of the Toledo Hospital tells us: «The acting out is already starting.
In many autonomous communities, a visa will be issued for the use of transmucosal fentanyl. It scares me very much because it is an opiate that is fifty times more potent than heroin”, she remarks in alarm. The truth is that there is a black market to obtain this substance without a prescription.
And the scariest thing is that outside of Spain it is very easy to buy a dose online for only 11 Euros. We have checked it. This is where the system is failing, we cannot allow this huge problem to escalate. Stricter laws must be promoted, gangs and drug traffickers must be stopped, and at the same time must begin to inform the population, especially the youngest, about the risks of this social and health tsunami, which The consumption of this extremely dangerous drug could lead to decades to come. opium. We have to root it out to prevent Europe from seeing the gruesome scenes of Kensington. We’re still on time.
