Philadelphia fentanyl ring leader arrested, authorities say

(NewsNation) — Authorities in Philadelphia arrested the alleged leader of a fentanyl ring as part of a crackdown on opioids in the city’s Kensington neighborhood.

District Attorney Larry Krasner announced the arrest of Jada Williams, who he said is a ringleader of that drug trade.

“These are not just people living on the street suffering from addiction. These are professional drug dealers who are doing very serious, very damaging stuff,” Krasner said.

Police also recovered two guns and 1,100 packets of suspected drugs from a house in the area.

“There’s 1,100 packets that aren’t on the street and there’s two guns that aren’t coming back and that’s going to give the folks of that community that much more rest,” said Paul Riddel with the Philadelphia Police Department.

Open-air drug market

People have described Kensington as an open-air drug market, where drugs like fentanyl and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, flourish.

Cherelle Parker, the city’s first female mayor, has vowed to crack down on the drug trade, starting with clearing encampments in the area that were said to be at the heart of the drug trade.

Despite some backlash to her tactics, many residents say Parker’s efforts will be more effective than the previous administrations. Under Mayor Jim Kenney, the city expanded harm-reduction programs, including a surge of the overdose antidote Nalazone, fentanyl testing strips and the handing out of millions of clean syringes.

His administration also emphasized diverting those arrested for low-level crimes away from the criminal justice system by offering treatment instead of tougher consequences.

Nationwide opioid epidemic

Philadelphia is far from the only city in the country dealing with the opioid crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported fatal overdose deaths did decline in the past year, one of the few times that has happened in recent decades.

Once driven by prescription pills, the epidemic is now primarily driven by heroin and illegal fentanyl. While fentanyl, a pain reliever many times more powerful than morphine, has legitimate medical uses, including the treatment of advanced cancer pain, it has gained popularity as an illegal street drug.

Brought into the U.S. by cartels, fentanyl is available in many forms and can be combined with other drugs, potentially resulting in overdoses because people aren’t aware they are ingesting the dangerous substance.

More than 100,000 people died from overdoses in the U.S. last year. In addition to government and law enforcement efforts to curb the epidemic, a push has been made to make naloxone, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose, more widely available.

Naloxone is available over-the-counter as a nasal spray that can be administered by people with no medical training.

NewsNation’s Urja Sinha contributed to this report.