Best of Year 2017: Philadelphia Begins Clean Up Of Drug Infested Encampment In Kensington Area
PHILADELPHIA, PA - JULY 31: (One of a 115-image Best of Year 2017 set) Chris, a homeless heroin addict, pauses to shoot-up by a railway underpass in the Kensington section of Philadelphia which has become a hub for heroin use on July 31, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Today was the first day of a long anticipated clean-up of one of the largest open air drug markets on the East Coast. Hundreds of outreach workers, city employees and Conrail workers started to clear an area of heroin users from a stretch of train tracks in Philadelphia's Kensington section known as El Campamento. Over 900 people died last year in Philadelphia from opioid overdoses, a 30 percent increase from 2015. As the epidemic shows no signs of weakening, the number of fatalities this year is expected to surpass last year's numbers. Heroin use has doubled across the country since 2010, according to the DEA, part of an epidemic of opioid abuse that began in the 1990s, when doctors began prescribing higher doses of powerful painkillers. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
