"I mean ever since I was in high school, if you wanted to get certain drugs, especially weed, you always knew a guy in high school. It's very common in America," said Derek Holste from Oregon in a recent interview with GDToday, who expressed his concern about the ongoing drug crisis all over the US.
The United States is now the 'drug capital' of the world, consuming more illicit drugs than any other country. The country makes up only 5% of the world's population, but consumes 80% of the world's opioids. Drug overdose deaths in the US have exceeded one million since 2000, and in the last few years, there have been more than 100,000 such deaths annually.
The crisis is evident on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has become the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast over the past 50 years.
"It's an open-air drug market. You can use drugs. They're out in the open. You can sell drugs out in the open. The police don't do anything. It's very alarming because everybody that you see in those videos, they're not from Kensington," said Frank Rodriguez, a local Anti-Drug Activist in Philadelphia, who used to be on the streets hooked on heroin. "They come to Kensington because they know the drugs are cheap there. They know they give out free drugs."
As data shows, last year, approximately 109,600 people died from drug overdoses in the United States. This number not only set a record, but also was more than the number of people who died from gunshots and car accidents in the United States that year combined.
In a nation plagued by traditional drugs such as heroin, meth and cocaine for decades, now varied kinds of opioids have surfaced and started to infiltrate the market.
In the view of Martin Raithelhuber, Illicit Synthetic Drugs Expert at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the problem is that these opioids can very quickly lead to dependence and tolerance, meaning that people want to take more and more to achieve the same effect and addiction, which would further cause the danger of overdose and can include fatal overdose.
These synthetic drugs now appear to be more accessible, being sold at lower prices and alarmingly reaching out to the younger generation. Half of Americans aged 12 and older have used illicit drugs at least once in their lifetime. Drug overdose deaths in the US have exceeded one million since 2000, and in the last few years, there have been more than 100,000 such deaths annually.
In 2022, a 15-year-old student at Helen Bernstein High School in Hollywood, Los Angeles, was killed after taking pills she bought from a 15-year-old boy on campus. It was only then that there was an urge from the White House's National Drug Control Policy office to tell all schools to stock Naloxone, a nasal spray sold under the brand name Narcan that works to reverse the effects of drugs, to avoid further tragedies from youth drug overdosing.
While some overdoses can be reversed, a new flesh-rotting tranquilizer nicknamed the 'zombie drug' with no reversal agent has begun to infiltrate drug supplies: Xylazine, which is deadly.
Now, millions are battling drug addiction in the US, but one cannot help but ask - how did the country get here? How does it get out? Stay tuned for our next episode for answers.
Reporter | Guo Zedong, Zhan Manqi (intern)
Video editor | Pan Jiajun
Graphic designer | Lai Meiya
Editor | Yuan Zixiang, James, Shen He
