INDIANAPOLIS -- Five people overdosed on a mixture of synthetic marijuana and bug spray known as “KD” Thursday morning outside of the Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral soup kitchen.
IMPD officers were called to the kitchen, located at the intersection of 14th and Pennsylvania streets, around 9:30 a.m. Thursday on a report of an overdose.
They arrived to find a total of find people lying unconscious outside the soup kitchen. All five were taken to Eskenazi Hospital for medical attention. The patients were all men, ranging in age from 18 to 47.
At the hospital, one of the men told police the group had been smoking the drug known as “KD” – a combination of either marijuana, “spice” or tobacco sprayed with “heavy duty” bug sprays like RAID and Wasp.
The drug has been linked to an increasing number of overdoses in Indianapolis, particularly downtown and on the Near Eastside. It can produce a range of debilitating effects, among them the inability to walk, speak or breathe and, in some instances, a catatonic state.
"Kind of like a zombie," Indianapolis Fire Department Captain Chris Major told RTV6 in March. "We started describing it like zombielike, where they might be eating the grass that they're lying in or they are tearing at their clothes."
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A woman sitting outside the soup kitchen Thursday afternoon told RTV6 she had been inside when the overdoses happened. She said she’s seen enough of the drug second-hand to know to stay away from it.
“I don’t f*** with KD,” she said.
An hour after being called to the soup kitchen, police were dispatched to the American Legion Mall a few blocks south on another possible overdose.
There, officers found three men who appeared to be under the influence of “spice.” One of the men was determined to be suffering from an apparent overdose and medics were called as a precaution. He declined to be transported and was released at the scene.
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