Pubdate: Sat, 16 Jul 2016
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company
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Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Eli Rosenberg

A STREET DRUG'S SUDDEN POPULARITY TESTS THE AUTHORITIES

The police raids around a gritty Brooklyn intersection were meant to 
show that city officials were taking charge after 33 people had been 
stricken by suspected overdoses of K2. But the spectacle, captured by 
a crush of news media, came up all but empty, without a single packet 
of the drug seized.

The outcome of the attempted crackdown underscored the challenges the 
authorities face in combating K2, a potent substance that is easy to 
distribute and hard to regulate. Its low price and powerful high have 
made it popular among some homeless people, and its effects have 
periodically transformed patches of the city - like the one on the 
border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant where the raids were 
carried out - into theaters of public drug use.

While K2 has been marketed to mimic the effects of marijuana, 
officials say it is more unpredictable. It has flourished in a legal 
gray area, as people who sell it employ various tricks to circumvent 
the laws against it, packaging it as "room freshener" and 
"potpourri," using labels like "not for human consumption" and 
changing the combinations of chemicals used to make it.

Despite the efforts of law enforcement agencies, officials said, K2 
can still be bought at some gas stations, smoke shops and convenience 
stores. The main problem, officials said, is that the chemical 
combinations used to produce it make it difficult to define legally.

"They're playing catch-up with a chemist who is mixing different 
compounds and coming up with different drugs," said James J. Hunt, 
the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's 
New York division.

City officials said on Thursday that the recent surge in overdoses 
had abated since earlier in the week, when 130 people were 
hospitalized over three days - just 10 shy of the total for June. 
Nonetheless, officials said, 26 people were admitted to hospital 
emergency rooms on Thursday for suspected overdoses, well above the 
daily average last month. Law enforcement and health department 
officials have blamed the K2 overdoses on a "bad batch" of K2, but 
have not identified the source.

In 2012, New York State expanded its list of prohibited chemicals in 
an effort to combat so-called synthetic drugs, a category that 
includes K2. And after K2 usage increased in New York City last year, 
the City Council passed three bills geared toward strengthening the 
city's own power to deal with the drug.

But law enforcement officials said that K2 still presented them with 
a unique challenge, demanding different approaches than those 
typically used to fight heroin and cocaine trafficking. Agent Hunt 
said operations that produce the drug, often with chemicals from 
China, can be as big as a warehouse or as a small as a single worker 
spraying plants in the back of a store. Production facilities in 
Brooklyn and the Bronx were found during a wave of raids last year, he said.

So far, efforts to stem the spread of the drug have focused mostly on 
suppliers, not on users, part of a trend in recent years toward 
decriminalizing drug consumption. Mayor Bill de Blasio, after signing 
the anti-K2 legislation in October, said the new laws would 
"criminalize sellers and manufacturers, without punishing users who 
are held hostage by this toxic drug."

But while many drugs are used privately, K2 use often bursts into 
public view, spurred by prices as low as a $1 per cigarette and the 
drug's popularity with homeless people who spend much of their time 
on the streets. And while opioids and other drugs can act as 
sedatives, K2 can cause agitation and exacerbate existing mental 
illness in those who use it.

Last year, K2 abuse enveloped a stretch of 125th Street in East 
Harlem, leaving a trail of twitching, strung-out users in the 
process. Around the Brooklyn intersection that was the nexus of the 
latest K2 spike, residents and workers have taken to calling the 
drug's users "zombies" and posting "No Smoking K2" signs near 
benches. Even as the police flooded the area this week, people could 
be seen lighting up K2 cigarettes in plain view.

Before the recent surge, officials said, the city had recorded a 
significant decrease in K2-related emergency room visits and arrests 
this year and had seized 30,000 pounds of the drug. Advocates for the 
homeless said the uptick had renewed fears that the drug's use could 
be on an upswing.

Daniel Raymond, policy director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, a 
national nonprofit focused on drug use, said he supported the city's 
emphasis on the suppliers and not the users. "We've seen that 
historically those kinds of crackdowns no matter what the drug, 
really only harm people and don't address underlying issue," he said.

Under the city's laws, the sale, manufacturing and distribution of K2 
is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail. The Consumer 
Affairs Department also has the power to revoke licenses to sell 
cigarettes from businesses found to be selling K2. The agency has yet 
to impose such a penalty.

Under the state health code, sale or possession of small amounts of 
K2 is a violation, not a crime. A bill that would reclassify the drug 
as a controlled substance and increase the charge for selling it to a 
felony from a misdemeanor has stalled. "The law as it stands doesn't 
allow for the appropriate tools to protect the health and well-being 
of the city and the state," said Bridget G. Brennan, the city's 
special narcotics prosecutor.

Ultimately, those working to fight the spread of the drug face a 
fundamental truth in the business of drug enforcement.

"They're playing whack-a-mole," said Dr. Nathan H. Lents, a professor 
at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "We've had a war on drugs 
for decades and we've never seen the appetite for these drugs go away."

Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom