A popular Brooklyn intersection was overtaken earlier this week by dozens of crumpled, immobilized synthetic marijuana users, who were suffering from an apparent mass overdose, and the emergency responders sent to care for them.
The scene was familiar to many across the country who have been battling against the proliferation of synthetic drugs – as well as to those just 10 miles away in East Harlem, the former center of New York City’s synthetic marijuana use.
“What you saw in Brooklyn was exactly what was going on in the 125th street corridor,” said Clark Pena, a community organizer based in east Harlem.
At least 33 people apparently overdosed on the synthetic marijuana, also known as K2 or Spice, on Tuesday in Brooklyn, filling a handful of city blocks with people frozen like statues and terrorizing passersby after taking what was probably a bad batch of the illegal drug.
Though Pena’s work is focused in another of the city’s five boroughs, he was so moved by the images of struggling addicts that he called in experts from Florida – where use of the synthetic drug flakka has dropped substantially – to advise local community leaders on a potential response to the crisis.
“This is a serious matter,” Pena said. “That’s someone’s son, that’s someone’s daughter, and the addiction has to be cut somewhere, or someone is going to lose their life.”
New York experienced a surge in hospitalizations of K2 cases in 2015 and there have at least two-confirmed K2-related deaths in the city, according to the New York City health department.
The agency said those visits were mostly by males, with a median age of 37, who “are disproportionately residents of shelters and individuals with a psychiatric illness”.
The city cracked down on K2 use in Harlem last year, but Pena said the intervention had simply shifted the problem to the intersection at the border of Brooklyn’s Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods. “It moved to a completely different borough but the problem still exists,” Pena said.
Use of K2 – which is sold in innocent-looking, brightly colored packets – surged in New York state because of its inexpensive cost and easy accessibility. A 4-gram packet could be sold for $5 and found at corner stores, according to a January 2016 state senate report.
New York City police on Wednesday raided five shops in Brooklyn thought to sell K2, which is a mix of chemicals barely resembling marijuana, but did not turn up evidence that the stores had sold the drug.
James Hunt, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York division, said that an incident like the overdose in Brooklyn certainly captures the attention of the federal agency.
But the DEA’s response is focused on bringing down large organizations that are distributing the drug, as in September 2015 when authorities announced a federal indictment against 10 manufacturers and distributors after a raid in the city. US attorney Preet Bharara said it was the largest law enforcement action in the city to combat the the drug.
Law enforcement is particularly concerned about K2 because of its unpredictability – approximately 98% of synthetic cannabinoid comes into the US from China, according to the DEA taskforce on synthetics. Those chemicals are then mixed with other chemicals in home labs in the US.
Hunt said that because the drugs are coming from different countries, their makers are less concerned about keeping their customer base alive, unlike traffickers of heroin and cocaine.
“When these drugs are being made in small labs in China or India and then there sprayed on a plant here by some guy that’s just looking to make a dime, he has no idea how much can just get you high,” Hunt said.
Because the composition of K2 can change batch to batch, the high is unpredictable. It can bear a resemblance to marijuana, with an elevated mood and relaxation, but it can also cause psychotic effects like paranoia, hallucinations and extreme anxiety.
After the September crackdown, the city made it illegal to possess or sell synthetic marijuana. State senator Jeffrey Klein, who has been pushing for statewide legislation to ban synthetic drugs said he was “disturbed” by the Brooklyn incident in an emailed statement.
“While the city has made great strides in combating K2, this problem continues to run rampant through our streets,” Klein said. “It is time for us to KO K2 from upstate to downstate to protect all of our citizens.”
That message was echoed by James Jones, who told the New York Post he was one of the 33 people who had taken the bad batch, which he bought at a local bodega.
Surveillance video shows Jones terrorizing a family of five before being restrained by police officers. He said he wanted to apologize for the incident and that he would stop taking the drug.
“I have three kids. Two girls, eight and five, [and] one boy, six,” Jones said. “I’m done with [K2]. I’m turning it around, going back to school.”
