🌊 Why Overdose Deaths Are Declining

Opioid overdoses are plummeting nationwide, and we’ve seen why firsthand

I’ll never forget the first time I went to Kensington.

It was the spring of 2024, and Max F and I were just starting our YouTube channel. We had heard about the infamous neighborhood through its numerous depictions in videos as “Zombieland” or “Philly’s Skid Row.” Yet we know that internet “journalists” sensationalize places, so we questioned whether it was as bad as it looked online.

Somehow, it was worse.

Huddled masses of addicts doing the now-notorious “fent folds” (standing with your upper body completely hunched over) lined the main stretch on Kensington Avenue. The people were in shocking condition: We saw open wounds, swollen ankles, and dirty faces everywhere we looked. We couldn’t walk on the sidewalk without stepping on needles.

Guiding us through the maze of addicts was the “pastor of the hood,” Carl Day. He looked like a pedestrian in New York elbowing his way through Penn Station as he made his way through the crowd. The army of zombies was that mundane to him.

I remember feeling anger: Where the hell were the cops? Why do only YouTubers cover this street? How is the “City of Brotherly Love” letting its residents live in this hell?

Fast forward to last Wednesday, and I found myself in Kensington again. This time, it looked unrecognizably cleaner.

Yes, it was winter, and yes, many of the street sweeps just pushed the users to side streets. But the numbers affirm the story: America’s fentanyl problem is getting better.

Why?

To answer this, we scoured the data, read new papers, and compared the findings to what we’ve seen around the country, from Kensington to San Francisco’s Tenderloin, Albuquerque’s War Zone, and the drug-flooded hills of Kentucky. We’ve talked to experts, including the author of Fentanyl, Inc. and the EMS team in opioid-afflicted Akron, OH, and addicts themselves.

In today’s deep-dive, we explore the answers.