Don’t Buy K2 At These Brooklyn Addresses, Police Say

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — The recent mass overdose caused by a "toxic strain" of synthetic marijuana has prompted police to warn Brooklynites against buying the drug from certain Brooklyn locations.

NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan warned New Yorkers of a toxic batch of K2 that has caused 49 overdoses and been traced to five locations across northern Brooklyn.

“This strain is especially threatening,” Monahan said in a statement released Monday night. “All residents who live near these five locations are warned about exceedingly dangerous K2 batches in circulation, and advised to avoid usage.”

Police released five addresses and noted how many overdoses had been linked to the area:

1) Broadway & Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy and Bushwick: 15 overdoses
2) 2570 Fulton St. in Bushwick: 21 overdoses
3) 599 Ralph Ave. in Crown Heights: 7 overdoses
4) 2399 Van Sinderen Ave. in Brownsville: 2 overdoses
5) 2402 Atlantic Ave. in Crown Heights: 4 overdoses

Investigators have made 13 arrests — including four employees of Big Boy deli on the Bushwick and Bed-Stuy border — and are currently investigating the source of the toxic drug.

Police also released photos of K2 packaging — with names such as "Fairly Legal" and "Scooby Snax" — that they've recovered during the investigation.

This is not the first mass K2 overdose to hit Brooklyn, or to involve Big Boy Deli. The Broadway bodega found itself at the center of a synthetic marijuana epidemic in 2016 when 33 people became sick and the store was raided, DNAinfo reported at the time.

Header photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Nov. 2017. K2 photos courtesy of the NYPD