December 19, 2023
SCREEN CAPTURE/TIKTOK
Tranq tourism is a social media trend where TikTok and YouTube users, particularly, travel to Kensington to record videos of people using opioids cut with the animal sedative xylazine, which creates creating a street drug known as tranq.
Philadelphia is becoming the center of a social media trend known as tranq tourism, where users on TikTok and YouTube travel to the Kensington neighborhood and record videos of people using intravenous drugs — most notably tranq, which is the street name for the animal sedative xylazine that has infiltrated the city's opioid supply in recent years.
The Guardian published an article about the trend on Sunday, describing it as "a dark and voyeuristic kind of content creation" that many addiction specialists and harm reduction advocates say exploits human suffering for the sake of users earning money on social media platforms.
The "Kensington Philadelphia" tag on TikTok returns dozens of videos shot on the streets of Kensington. Many show people slumped over on trash-strewn sidewalks, shooting up with syringes. In some videos, people she their experiences with drug addiction and its effects. Some videos have millions of views.
"This is such an undignified practice," Silvana Mazzella told PhillyVoice on Tuesday. Mazzella is the interim lead executive officer at Prevention Point Philadelphia, a Kensington-based organization that provides harm-reduction services to people experiencing addiction and homelessness. "You're approaching people who are not always able to make the most informed decision or give consent. And they're getting portrayed when they're not at their most stable, with no awareness of what this is going to look like or how it’s going to be shared."
While some of the videos and comments on TikTok attempt to tell these stories in a humane and empathetic way, many of them sensationalize or mock the challenges faced by people grappling with addiction and poverty.
Xylazine is commonly known as tranq or tanq dope. It is a tranquilizer commonly used in veterinary medicine. It was first seen in Kensington’s street drug supply about a decade ago, but its prevalence grew sharply in 2019, when dealers started mixing the cheap, highly addictive substance into opioids, like fentanyl and heroin. One study in 2022 found that 91% of the street opioids in Philadelphia contained xylazine.
Tranq, which is known to cause painful wounds and infections on users' skin and a zombie-like incapacitation, has shown up in 48 U.S. states. The drug has become so widespread that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency issued a public safety notice earlier this year warning that its increased prevalence in the nation's street drug supply is "making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier."
Because of how commonly it is being abused, Pennsylvania and the federal government have attempted to implement tighter controls on xylazine.
The public health threat posed by xylazine-laced opioids is particularly acute in Philadelphia, which is considered the epicenter of the tranq phenomenon.
Not surprisingly, overdose deaths related xylazine are on the rise in Philly. The sedative was involved in 34% of the city's overdose deaths in 2022, a year in which drug overdose deaths reached an all-time high in Philadelphia, according to data from the city's Department of Health.
"This is a serious issue because it contributes to overdoses and it also complicates overdoses and overdose reversal," Mazzella said.
Since xylazine is not an opioid, its effects can’t be reversed by a drug like Narcan. "Then there are the types of wounds people are experiencing from xylazine, which has huge public health implications," Mazzella added.
"I originally started my channel to make money," said one anonymous TikTok creator, who was interviewed for the short YouTube documentary about tranq tourism in Kensington posted below. About making tranq tourism videos, the TikToker said, "I'm not going to be the one to try and halfway it and say everything is about the love for the people. It's not. I love the people, but at the same time, if it's an easy dollar, why not?"
Popular TikToks can earn around two to four cents per thousand views, and that adds up. The median salary earned by creators on TikTok is thought to be between $15,000 and $25,000, with some heavily followed TikTokers earning six figures per year, according to one data analysis.
The Guardian isn't the first news outlet outside of Philadelphia to hone in on addiction in Kensington. In 2018, a New York Times Magazine feature took an in-depth look at the notorious opioid epidemic in the neighborhood, which it termed the "Walmart of heroin."
Kensington's drug problems have only grown more severe since then, with some international media outlets publishing graphic accounts of the toll taken from drugs like fentanyl and tranq on the people living in Kensington — or "Zombieland," as the neighborhood has been called.
Despite its questionable ethics, the tranq tourism content creation trend is a difficult one to police. With no legal protection against being filmed in public places and social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram lacking policies that prohibit such videos, the decision of whether or not to post this type of content lies primarily with those creating it.
"Consider why you want to do this," Mazzella said of the people flocking to Kensington to document the struggles of its most vulnerable residents. "If you were under the influence or unsheltered or in need, would you want someone to do this to you? And to what end?"
With a new mayor set to be sworn in next month, it remains to be seen how Kensington's drug epidemic may be addressed — one possibility floated by mayor-elect Cherelle Parker would involve the National Guard. But however events unfold, we can reasonably expect them to be live-streamed.
NOTE: The headlines and portions of this article were edited after it was initially published.
