Daily Bugle article

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New Recreational Drug Has City Officials Stumped
By Thomas Lee

In the wake of a heroin crisis that deepened in New York last year, New York health workers, law enforcement and emergency personnel now find themselves struggling to combat the sudden spike in overdoses of a new drug nicknamed "rave."

The death toll from rave has risen 50% over the last four months, mounting a potential challenge to city officials who have so far been unable to combat the rise. At the same time, the spread of heroin in the city has continued, though the rate of overdoses has slowed.

Neither the mayor's office nor the New York Police Department made leadership available for comment. But a high-ranking City Hall official says that the administration links the rise in rave to the virtual disappearance of the mutant-amplifying amphetamine known as "Kick" from the street.

"After M-Day," the official said, referencing the series of explosions that occurred in December 2014, "with the mutant population decimated, the Kick trade dried up. No more customer base. The dealers were hurting, and they needed something else to fill the vacuum."

In a statement, the Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed that Kick-related arrests and seizures have dropped to their lowest levels since the agency began tracking the drug.

The agency, through a spokeswoman, declined to discuss Rave.