🤯 $1 Billion a Year: Why "Cleaning Up" Kensington Won't Stop the Drug Trade

 

The tragic crisis in Kensington, Philadelphia, is often framed solely as a problem of homelessness and addiction on its streets. However, a recent analysis from the YouTube channel Chris Battin (Video: Is the Homeless Population of People in Kensington Responsible for ALL the Money Coming for Drugs?) breaks down the staggering economics of the local drug trade, revealing a critical fact: the vast majority of the money is imported.

The video, which uses data based on conversations with people on the street and rough estimates, offers a powerful financial perspective that shifts the focus from the victims of addiction to the external demand driving the market.

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The Staggering Scale: $1 Billion in Income

The core premise of the analysis is a commonly cited estimate that the total income generated by drug dealers in Kensington alone reaches an astonishing $1 billion annually.

To understand where this massive amount of money originates, the video separates the income into two primary streams:

1. Local Income: Money spent by the estimated 2,000 individuals living locally or experiencing homelessness in Kensington.

2. External Income: Money spent by people who drive or take transit into Kensington specifically to purchase drugs.

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90% of the Money Comes From Outsiders

The video’s key finding is a complete reversal of the popular narrative. By crunching the numbers, the analysis shows that the local homeless population is responsible for only a small fraction of the total revenue.

📈 Financial Breakdown (Annual Estimates):

Category	Annual Value	% of Total $1 Billion
Local User Spending	$109,500,000	10.95%
External Customer Spending	$890,500,000	89.05%

This means that almost 90 cents of every dollar earned by Kensington drug dealers is supplied by customers traveling into the neighborhood.

The scale of this external demand is massive. Assuming an average external purchase of $500, the video estimates that the dealers facilitate over 4,879 drug transactions per day from external buyers.

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The Flawed Solution: Targeting the Homeless

The video uses this financial evidence to challenge the idea that removing or "cleaning up" the local homeless population will resolve the drug crisis.

As the analysis shows, the drug trade is not sustained by the 10% of revenue from local users; it is a $890 million enterprise fueled by demand from people who drive or commute into Kensington. The speaker argues that focusing solely on the homeless population is "far from" addressing the whole thing, as the financial engine of the crisis is based entirely on external demand.

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The Hidden Cost: Prostitution and Local Funding

The video also touches on how the local users fund their 10% share of the market, which tragically exposes another layer of the crisis: prostitution.

The analysis estimates that approximately 80% of the $109.5 million spent by the local population is financed through prostitution. The speaker suggests that a key lever for change is to target the men with the money who are hiring the women, as their behavior is easier to curb than the physical demands of addiction faced by the women.

In short, the video concludes that the solution lies not just in addressing the visible crisis on the streets, but in cutting off the external financial demand that makes the drug enterprise profitable in the first place.

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Watch the full analysis here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSCfkOHCqzI

The Permanent Scar: What Happens When the Law Says "Stop"?

🔥 The Permanent Scar: What Happens When the Law Says "Stop"?

​I'm thrilled to announce the publication of my novel, "The Permanent Scar: A Constitutional Vow (Restored and Enhanced)."

​This is not just a story; it's a chilling blueprint of democratic failure and the extraordinary cost of its rescue.

​The novel transports you to a near-future Washington, D.C., where a colossal Golden Ballroom, intended as a monument to absolute power, is violently halted mid-construction by a constitutional process. The building is intentionally left as a raw, exposed ruin—The Permanent Scar—a physical monument to a totalitarian dream that died.

​Dare to Walk the Hall of Interruption.

• ​Discover The Law that Became Bread: Meet the ordinary citizens saved by a single piece of court-stamped paper, proving that the abstract rule of law is the ultimate protection against the weaponization of human need.
• ​Navigate The Ghost East Wing: See what was destroyed to make way for ambition, and learn what a nation must sacrifice to maintain its Constitutional Vow.
• ​Witness the Permanent Scaffolding: This is the story of a democracy that refuses to be "finished," accepting its fragility as its greatest strength.

​If you are a professional in government, a student of history, or anyone who believes that vigilance is the true price of liberty, this novel is your call to action.

​The work of democracy is permanently under construction. Are you ready to pick up the tools?

​Click below to start reading the vow that binds us:

​https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HVZzzwUzZ7UR5ND1hmhnu1g9l4AvS-xOaVVI5m6BfFc/edit?usp=drivesdk

Please note that if you are opening this link inside of Facebook, you might need to copy and paste the link into your browsers search bar to access the novel correctly.

​#ThePermanentScar #ConstitutionalVow #PoliticalFiction #MilitantDemocracy #TheLawHeld

The Vicious Cycle: Why Fear of Degradation is a Greater Barrier Than Addiction Itself

When we speak of the addiction crisis, the conversation often focuses on willpower, drugs, or detox beds. But for magnificent human beings battling substance use disorder (SUD) on the streets, the greatest hurdle is not the drug itself. It is the agonizing choice between the known suffering of addiction and the terrifying, often compounding, pain of seeking professional help.

The reality is tragically simple: many individuals intellectually know they want a better life, but the detox process is so brutally painful, and the care they receive so often devoid of dignity, that choosing to remain on the street feels like the only rational act of self-preservation.

1. The Agony of the Rational Choice

Imagine a young woman, deep in the cycle of addiction, who gathers every ounce of courage to seek medical help. After hours of waiting—six, seven, eight hours—the agony of acute withdrawal, or "dope sickness," begins to set in. She realizes the medical facility is failing to manage her symptoms or even see her in a timely manner.

In that moment of exquisite, unbearable physical pain, she faces a choice:

 * Endure the unmanaged agony while being treated with contempt by medical staff, potentially for days, only to risk a traumatizing relapse within the facility.

 * Leave and find temporary relief to survive, even if it means resorting to desperate measures, like prostitution, to pay for the substance she despises.

When the system cannot provide simple stabilization—like an anxiolytic to calm a terrified body and mind—it actively forces the vulnerable back to the streets. The choice is made not by a failure of will, but by a basic survival mechanism triggered by systemic neglect.

2. The Medical Nightmare: Unknown Withdrawal

This crisis is further complicated by the evolving nature of illicit drugs. Standard Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), such as buprenorphine for opioids, is often insufficient because the drugs consumed are increasingly unknown, complex, and synthetic. These polysubstance addictions create chaotic, unpredictable withdrawal syndromes that are profoundly frightening and often unaddressed by standard protocols.

For medical staff, this presents a diagnostic challenge; for the patient, it’s a living hell. The fear of this agonizing, unknown detox is entirely valid, and it is exponentially worse when combined with the certainty of dehumanization in the care setting.

3. The Systemic Betrayal: Dignity vs. Dollars

The final, and most heartbreaking, barrier is the quality of care available to those who rely on Medicaid.

As chronicled in painful detail by the journey of one former patient, the care at many Medicaid-level facilities tragically and repeatedly failed to provide the kindness, respect, and safety owed to every human being. The result is a toxic environment that actively reinforces the patient’s worst fears and feelings of worthlessness:

 * The Financial Paradox: Private facilities with ample beds often charge $1,000–$2,000 per day, while Medicaid reimbursement is barely $200. This disparity creates a "Medicaid Mountain," where dignity is a product reserved for the privately insured. As past documentation has shown, individuals on the streets of some communities can earn more money from survival activities to fund their addiction in 24 hours than the system pays to save their life with dignity. This economic reality screams the message: your life is not worth the cost of compassionate care.

 * The Dehumanization: Staff in these underfunded environments often lack trauma-informed training and resort to using derogatory labels, such as "junkie" or "whore." This verbal and emotional abuse transforms the healing space into a place of moral injury, where the very people sworn to "do no harm" become the primary source of emotional violence, eroding self-worth at the precise moment it is most needed for recovery.

4. When Systemic Failure Becomes Fatal

The consequences of this systemic cruelty are not theoretical; they are fatal. The record of one patient's attempts to seek care serves as a devastating catalogue of how the system kills hope and, ultimately, life:

 * Medical Malpractice: This patient suffered precipitated withdrawal after being given necessary medication "far too early," a clear deviation from standard clinical practice that plunged her into agony, shattered her trust, and led to a desperate, immediate relapse.

 * Unsafe Environments: She was subjected to physical assault and sexual exposure within a co-ed facility, where staff failed to protect her and later mocked her trauma.

 * Negligent Discharge: In her final attempt at sobriety, after expressing commitment to care, she was administratively discharged to the curb in a state of crisis because she was deemed a "liability." She died shortly after being abandoned.

Every failure—from the denial of food for hours to the shaming language to the negligent removal—was an act of systemic betrayal that undermined her magnificent potential.

A Call for Dignity and Justice

This is not a cry for more facilities; it is a demand for a revolution in care.

These are magnificent human beings who deserve the highest dignity, honor, respect, and love. Our systems must reflect that truth.

We must advocate for:

 * Timely, Symptomatic Care: Implementing rapid triage and evidence-based protocols in all emergency settings, ensuring immediate medication for acute withdrawal (Ativan, MAT, etc.) to stabilize the patient and preserve their window of opportunity.

 * Increased Medicaid Reimbursement: Closing the financial gap is the only way to incentivize quality facilities to provide compassionate, safe, and effective care to every patient, regardless of their income.

 * Mandatory Dignity Protocols: Instituting zero-tolerance policies for stigmatizing language and negligent discharges. Trauma-informed care must become the mandatory, baseline standard across all treatment facilities, recognizing that compassion is not an emotional luxury, but a medical necessity.

We must ensure that when a person gathers the monumental courage to seek help, they are met not with institutional abuse, but with the magnificent care their inherent worth demands.