But just a short drive away, Kensington has become the grim epicenter of a drug crisis that has left users slumped in the street, covered in wounds, and trapped in brutal cycles of addiction.
The North Philadelphia neighborhood is about a 16-minute drive from Lincoln Financial Field, which has been renamed Philadelphia Stadium for the World Cup.
The venue will host five group-stage games before a Round of 16 clash on July 4.
Côte d’Ivoire and Ecuador will play there on June 14, followed by Brazil vs Haiti on June 19.
France will face Iraq on June 22, Curaçao will play Côte d’Ivoire on June 25, and Croatia will take on Ghana on June 27.
But away from the fan zones and stadium crowds, Kensington remains one of the most visible symbols of America’s fentanyl crisis.
The neighborhood has for years been battered by xylazine, an animal tranquilizer known on the street as tranq.
The drug is not approved for human use and is typically used by veterinarians to sedate animals.
It is often mixed into fentanyl to make the high last longer.
But its effects can be horrifying.
Users have been seen bent over, stumbling, or frozen in a trance-like state known as the “tranq walk.”
The drug has also been linked to severe skin wounds that can rot through tissue and become infected.
In some cases, the wounds can expose tendons and bone, and lead to amputation if left untreated.
A former tranq addict previously told The U.S. Sun that the drug left her cutting away her own dead skin in a desperate bid to save her arms.
“I was just kind of maintaining taking care of my arms but then they turned black and necrotic and because of the judgment [in the hospital], I started cutting off the black skin myself,” she said.
“I don’t recommend that obviously because I did do some damage, I cut a tendon from not knowing what I was cutting.”
Sarah Laurel, founder of the outreach group Savage Sisters, told the Daily Mail: “I’ve never seen human beings remain in these kinds of conditions.”
At the height of the crisis, addiction psychiatrist Eric D. Collins told The U.S. Sun that 90 percent of confiscated fentanyl drugs in Philadelphia contained xylazine.
Philadelphia health officials said xylazine was involved in 38 percent of all unintentional overdose deaths in the city in 2023.
Every xylazine-involved death that year also involved fentanyl or a fentanyl analogue, according to city data.
Now, health officials warn that the local drug supply has shifted again.
Medetomidine, another powerful veterinary sedative, has been detected in Philadelphia’s fentanyl supply and is now replacing xylazine in some samples.
The drug is 100 to 200 times more potent than xylazine, according to Philadelphia substance-use officials.
It can cause longer sedation, dangerously low heart rates, and severe withdrawal symptoms.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health said medetomidine was first found in the city’s drug supply in May 2024.
Between January and June 2025, city testing found medetomidine in 80 percent of suspected dope samples.
Most of the samples were collected in the Kensington area.
Hospitals began raising alarms after patients arrived with unusually low heart rates and long periods of sedation.
“Folks were coming in with very low heart rates, long periods of sedation, and they were concerned someone changed the supply,” Dr Daniel Teixeira da Silva of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health told The New York Times.
Christopher Moraff, founder of PA Groundhogs, told local outlet 6abc that medetomidine has become widespread in the supply.
“On average, there is twice as much medetomidine as fentanyl in a bag of dope,” he said.
Moraff said some users collapse almost immediately after taking it.
“They basically face planted on the floor and basically snored for six hours the whole time,” he said.
Unlike xylazine, which is notorious for skin wounds, medetomidine has triggered a terrifying withdrawal crisis.
Patients can suffer soaring heart rates, high blood pressure, vomiting, nausea, tremors, and agitation.
Some cases have been so severe that patients have ended up in intensive care.
A CDC report found that 165 patients were hospitalized at three Philadelphia health systems for suspected medetomidine withdrawal between September 2024 and January 2025.
Of those patients, 150 required ICU care, and 39 were intubated.
“Our I.C.U.s have been overwhelmed,” Dr Daniel del Portal, an emergency room physician and Temple Health administrator, told The New York Times.
The crisis has complicated overdose responses because medetomidine is not an opioid.
Naloxone, also known as Narcan, can help reverse the fentanyl part of an overdose, but it does not reverse the sedative effects of medetomidine.
The CDC warned in April 2024 that medetomidine has been reported in drug samples, biological specimens, and wastewater as it spreads across the US.
The agency said the drug had been detected in at least 18 states and Washington, DC, by late July 2024.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16495787/flesh-eating-zombie-drug-crisis-spreads-us/
