33 people collapse on busy street after smoking synthetic cannabis.
A large number of New Yorkers were hospitalised on Tuesday morning after smoking what is thought to have been a ‘bad batch’ of the drug K2.
Emergency services were alerted at around 9.40am when a member of the public called 911 to report having seen several people with “altered mental status.” Many collapsed onto the pavements and subway platforms around the intersection in Brooklyn. According to DNAinfo witnesses saw “some urinating, vomiting and breathing heavily while others sat crumpled on the pavement”. Local man Brian Arthur, 38, who videoed himself walking among the affected people, told the New York Daily News: “It was like a scene out of ‘The Walking Dead.’ They were zombied out. “It was a horrible scene. They were laid out twitching on the floor. Some of them were motionless.
This is nothing you’d want your kids to see.” K2 is a version of the “synthetic cannabis” known in the UK as Spice, made by spraying chemicals onto dried leaves. It was outlawed in New York in October 2015, and is also illegal in the UK. The effected users - 33 in total - were taken to Woodhull Hospital and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center to receive medical attention. Chris Yadron, executive director of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, told the Daily News: “If that many people are going to the hospital, it’s probably pretty indicative of something pretty toxic.” In the wake of what has been described as a “mass overdose,” emergency workers have visited homeless shelters and methadone clinics to warn inhabitants about the drug. Source: telegraph.co.uk
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