"Philadephia" the city of Brotherly love.

Let's talk about the "Badlands". The badlands is a section in North Philadelphia. Those of you from Philly know that exact area. It's the area where people do their best to avoid. The Badlands is where you go for an "open-air" drug market and for drug-related violence. Every day someone is killed for money or someone is killed for drug-related instances, rather that be possession or for stealing. Either way, someone is going to die every day in the Badlands. It's a sad, but a true reality of Philadelphia. The addiction to drugs gets so bad people put theirselves in a dangerous situation. The high is better than life itself. People value drugs more than another person's life. It's all business and quite frankly not a business I want to be a part of.

I always knew about the Badlands, I just never really looked into it. I knew that terrible things were going on there, but it was out of my hands. It was a true eye opener when I saw an article that mentioned nearly 50 people overdosed in the badlands... Think about that, 50 people. That is 50 people who died overnight from the use of drugs. The residents of the badlands don't think twice, because this is just what happens, it's sad, but true. It is what happens. When you have a city that has so many people hooked on drugs it's only a matter of time before they overdose or die of drug-related violence. These people that die become a statistic, but we need to stop thinking of them as a statistic. We need to start seeing these people as victims of addiction or victims of the wrong path. Rather some people see them as a "Druggie" or a "Dealer". I don't think they got up one day and said, "Let's do drugs and deal!". They probably had hopes and dreams, but didn't have the money and went down the wrong path.

Drug abuse is one of the nations, hell, the world's biggest problems. If drugs have made it to small suburban towns, like the one I currently live in. It's only a matter of time before it reaches every community. We need to start fighting back. The drugs need to stop and the body count needs to lower. When 50 people die in an area all overnight you realize that there is a real problem here. Feel free to make the argument "They chose this life" Sure, in a way they did choose this life, but what brought them to this life? Did someone get them started and they couldn't stop? Was it the only way for them to survive in their community?

I know not everyone in the Badlands is a drug dealer or a druggie, some of them just happen to be poor. They can't afford to leave the "ghetto" and or "Badlands". That's not their fault. They can work, but in these environments it's only a matter of time before the money you worked for, gets stolen. Then you're back to square one. Not everyone here is not fighting the good battle to get out. A lot are, but there is only so much you can do. At the end of the day, the streets need to be cleaned up. The drug addicts need to find help and the killing needs to stop. "The City of Brotherly Love" has turned into "The City of Brotherly Fratricide "

Love not Drugs

Love not Murder