It’s not just Florida. Close by my neigborhood (and let’s not kid ourselves, probably right in my neighborhood) are a hellacious number of Oxy addicts.
My favorite local blog, Philly Neighbor, points out the industriousness with with Oxy addicts supply themselves:
Even a Kenzo* only moderately addicted to Oxycontin will spend thousands of dollars a year on the drug. An Oxy 80 pill costs roughly $50. If the Kenzo snorts just one a day for an entire year, he will spend over $18,000.
And that figure doesn’t include other drug-related expenses. During his junky adventures, a Kenzo is going to purchase at least a few Xanax pills, bags of wet, and eightballs of cocaine. A Kenzo with a truly robust drug habit may need upwards of $40,000 a year just to cover his bases. And, of course, by “cover his bases” I mean “the need to nearly overdose every fucking day.”
With huge narco-expenses, a very small number of Kenzos can actually afford to pay a monthly rent. Therefore, any Kenzo who goes through life happily munching mouthfuls of pills will learn how to be homeless.
*A Kenzo is technically a resident, present or former, of Kensington, the local Junkie Central hood, but it is also refers to a state of mind, like ghetto: “That is so ghetto!” The Kenzos are a fact of life, like taxes. About 40 years ago, Kensington was a nice little blue-collar area with a vibrant strip of local stores, much like the one I live in now — until the factories closed down. Now it’s famous instead for the intersection of Kensington and Somerset avenues, where there’s an open-air, 24/7 drug bazaar. It was recently famous for its serial killer, but once he was caught, city officials went back to ignoring the area’s crime problem and concentrate instead on keeping it from reaching the East Kensington and Fishtown hipsters.
I’m seeing it in my neighborhood as well, which is 15 miles southwest of Philly, close to Chester but still an almost “upscale” suburban neighborhood – there are several people who live in my condo complex whose kids are on heroin, one of them has robbed some neighbors, even beat someone with a bat in our parking lot, I have friends whose kids are on and off pills/heroin, and we see it at the law office where I work as well. Just yesterday had a conversation with a co-worker asking “DIDN’T THEY WARN KIDS IN HEALTH CLASS LIKE THEY WARNED US?” We didn’t have heroin at school in the early 80’s where I live, THANK GOD. I’ve been struggling with chronic pain for the last 10 years due to chronic Lyme, just a few months ago started feeling better after taking antibiotics for YEARS (along with oxycodone, which was the ONLY way I could work a full time job through the HELL of pain and fatigue that is Lyme Disease). When I started to feel better, I managed to get off of the pain pills all by myself – mind you it was not fun, but it is do-able. People need to know that addiction and withdrawal GO AWAY – you do get sick, but you ALSO get better! There need to be people EDUCATING these kids about how to STOP taking narcotics – the sickness does not last forever and once it’s gone, you’re DONE! VOILA!
Heh, thanks for the shoutout! I’m glad (well, not ‘glad’, but, ya know…) that there are similar Oxy heads in your neck of the woods. Cool site ya got here.
— Chip from PN