Introduction
Peter Santello creates “videos about a world the media fails to capture” (source). In this video, he travels to Kensington, Philadelphia to speak with a local man named Buddy Osborn, who reached out to him to tell him about “the horrific realities of open-air drug markets.” Buddy and his organization, The Rock, help “to get kids out of crime and drugs and into a healthier environment built upon confidence and clarity.”
Watch Now!
Quotes
“We’ll show you McPherson Square. They also named it Needle Park, which is heart-wrenching because it’s really the only place in Kensington where you have an open space.”
“Kensington right now is a tourist attraction for poeple to come and look and see people dying on the streets. And the truth of the matter is they don’t have to die on the streets because there is help … [but] it takes 17 times. You get refused 17 times. That’s the average number before somebody wants to reach out for help, when somebody wants to accept the help.”
“No child should be able to see what they see here. A kid was not born to look at what they see. You got so many kids that are locked behind in houses. They just can’t come out and enjoy their life. They can’t because they’re locked behind in the house because of the post-traumatic stress disorder they’ve developed because of what they’ve seen over the years. It’s horrible.”
“If someone is in agreeance with these policies, please explain how that is compassion, seeing someone passed out with flies on their wounds and letting them rot on the streets.”
“When you allow accountability to come into your life … Now you gotta look at your own heart and you gotta say, what’s wrong and what’s right? What do I gotta stop? What do I gotta do? What do I gotta give up and what do I gotta step into? I had to do that myself.”
DAVID
“You saw how many people, that was just a handful. There’s dozens and dozens of those examples that you saw laying all over Kensington. That’s somebody’s mother, that’s someone’s father, someone’s daughter, someone’s son. It’s a family member. There’s gotta be some stringent rules that have to be put in place and then they have to respect it.”
“People have the wrong idea about what a rehab actually is. When they go into rehab, they learn about what sent them there in the first place, the dopamine responses, the chemical imbalances, all them technical and stuff like that, but where they really learn how to be recovered.”
“These kids could be standing on the block – moving rock, selling drugs. And now they’re here at a safe haven, safe refuse for these kids.”
“Here’s how it works. When you want to get right, you want to get well, we’ll give you a shower. We’ll put clothes on their back and then we’ll get ’em to a hospital. We’ll get ’em to a detox. We’ll get ’em to a treatment place. We use it [donations] to get people to detox, plane fares, bus fares. Every cent that comes from this tent, that’s a benevolence fund.“
Continue Learning
Hey there! I hope you found this resource useful! If you’re interested in learning more about some of the topics discussed, you can browse through these additional resources. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need help with anything else.
Abstinence & A.A.
- 7 Common Questions
- 12-Steps & 12-Traditions
- 12-Steps Explained
- Abstinence Based Approaches
- Abstinence Based Treatment
- Abstinence Is Not the Only Option
- Abstinence vs Harm Reduction
- AA vs Other Treatments
- Effectiveness of Making Alcoholics Anonymous Easier
- One Size Does Not Fit All
- Why Does AA Work?
Harm Reduction
- Do Supervised Consumption Sites Increase Crime? ‘The Answer To That Is A Flat No’
- Does Evidence Support Supervised Injection Sites?
- Fact Check: Dispelling Myths About Supervised Consumption Sites
- Harm Reduction: A B.C. Community Guide [PDF]
- Harm Reduction for Opioids: A Canadian Perspective
- Harm Reduction Practices in Communities
- How to Use Naloxone
- Indigenous Harm Reduction
- National Harm Reduction Coalition – Harm Reduction Truth
- Rapid Access Models for Substance Use Services [PDF]
- Why Safe Injection Sites Are Considered More Effective Than Needle Exchange Programs
Opioid Crisis
- Beyond Supply: How We Must Tackle the Opioid Epidemic [PDF]
- California’s Opioid Crisis
- Facts About Naltrexone [PDF]
- Fentanyl: America’s Grim New Opioid Addiction
- How America Got Hooked on Opioids
- How Good Intentions Contributed to Bad Outcomes [PDF]
- How the Government is Making the Opioid Crisis Worse
- Opioid Crisis: Addiction, Overprescription, and Insufficient Primary Prevention
- The Impact of the Deadly Fentanyl ‘Plague’ on One American City
- The Opioid Crisis in Canada: A National Perspective
- Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic
- Unraveling the Start of the Opioid Crisis
- What Led to the Opioid Crisis – and How to Fix It
- Why Is There an Opioid Crisis?
Recovery
- Getting Sober and Staying Sober: How to Make Recovery Stick
- Mindful Addiction Recovery
- Russell Brand’s Speech on Drugs, Addiction, & Recovery
- SMART Recovery
- The Five Stages of Addiction Recovery
- The Neuroscience of Addiction Recovery
- The Role of Family in Addiction Recovery
- The Truth About Dopamine After Alcohol Addiction Recovery
- What’s the Difference Between Sobriety & Recovery?
Share Your Opinion
If you have finished reviewing this resource and have some spare time, I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide your opinion. Was it useful and informative? Did you run into any problems or find something distasteful? I’m thankful for any constructive and helpful feedback to help me improve.
* Your review will be for this specific post and as a result will affect the star rating of the resource. All submissions are reviewed for approval to filter out spam and inappropriate comments. Your email is requested as I may want to follow-up with you. Please also be aware that your review may be placed publicly on this website for others to read.
There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write one.
