Despite recent attention, drug deaths have actually dropped, officials say

The vacant lot across from Sue Roman's Kensington home is an addict's asylum: Far from busier city streets, the sprawling swath along Ormes Street near Indiana Avenue offers plenty of towering weeds and debris to shield even the least discreet of drug users.

Overdose deaths are so common that discovering corpses has become a sort of grim game.

"I found the last one," said Dashawna Gasper, 17, chatting with neighbors near the lot one recent afternoon. "White girl, blonde. Still had the needle in her hand."

"How many bodies we found over there in that lot?" neighbor Jennifer Lugo asked Roman, the block captain.

"You mean, this year?" Roman responded.

In a neighborhood that has long struggled with drug problems, the Kensington Strangler's killing rampage drew attention to addicts in a way no public-service announcement could.

Each of the three bodies discovered got an enormous amount of scrutiny, as authorities scrambled to determine whether the victim had fallen prey to a serial killer or illegal drugs. Police this month arrested Antonio Rodriguez, 22, who they say is linked by DNA to the slayings of three addicts.

But although the attention suggested overdoses are more abundant than ever, the opposite is actually true, according to the city Health Department.

Overdose deaths citywide were down last year, falling steadily from 498 in the fiscal year ending in June 2007 - when dealers were spiking heroin with the potent but potentially lethal painkiller fentanyl - to 369 in fiscal 2010, said Arthur Evans, director of the city's Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services.

At the same time, more addicts are entering rehab. The number of people enrolled in Medicaid-funded drug- and alcohol-treatment programs in the city rose from 26,689 in fiscal year 2007 to 30,108 in the last fiscal year, Evans said.

Many factors affect those numbers, Evans said. Philadelphia's location along a major corridor for drug traffickers means the purity - and potential deadliness - of cocaine, heroin and other drugs is higher here. That ensures overdose deaths stay higher here than cities elsewhere, such as the Midwest, he said.

But Evans said he believes aggressive outreach and counseling programs have helped reduce overdose deaths.

For example, under the city's New Pathways program, outreach workers approached 6,500 people last year in places treatment providers haven't typically gone, such as under bridges. The effort resulted in about 40 addicts getting help, he added.