"It was fun at first, but then it became a habit, from weekends to everyday use," said Della Ellis.

Ellis, a former K2 user, has been clean for 8 months now, but she's seen the unpredictable effects first hand, which is why she clearly remembers the moment she decided to stop using the synthetic drug.

"When my heart almost stopped," said Ellis. "My heart was beating rapidly and the tingling sensations in my leg, it scared me real bad and I thought I was going to pass away."

Ellis was just one of the growing number of K2 users who've been rushed to the emergency room after taking the drug.

In fact, during one week in April, the health department says they saw more than 130 cases of K2 use.

"Smoking it is the psychological equivalent of pouring battery acid in your brain," said David Woodlock CEO of the ICL rehab clinics.

Effects of the drug vary wildly from aggression and violence to sedation and it's nearly impossible for a person to know what chemicals are contained in each package.

"And for that reason, the effects are so very unpredictable from brand to brand, from packet to packet," Hillary Kunins Assistant Commissioner at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

While K2 is marketed as a synthetic marijuana, experts say it has no relation to the plant based drug, but is more similar to PCP or "Angel Dust".

"This is not a plant, this is not marijuana, this is a dangerous chemical that is being used to distort the behavior of everyday Brooklynites and we the help from government to move this conversation forward," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

City Council Speark Melissa Mark-Viverito says the council is ready to help and has already been crafting legislation for months.

"And the legislation basically makes it illegal to sell this product," the Speaker said.

But as the city clamps down on one chemical compound another drug pops up. We sent in an undercover team to Myrtle Avenue and Broadway where the Borough Presidents office say they received a number of K2 complaints.

While bodegas and deli's seemed to have ditched the drug but are already carrying what could be its replacement.

"Can I have that Super Kratom Brothers?" our undercover agent asked a clerk.

Kratom is another drug that produces a wide range of effects. While K2 is meant to mirror marijuana, Kratom is meant to mirror the effects of opiates.

"All these are synthetic drugs that are supposed to mirror the intoxicants that are organically in various other drugs," said Steve Chassman at the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

Chassmen says he's already starting to see Kratom cases pop up in his clinic and many of the adverse effects caused by K2 are also caused by this drug.

"Hospitalization, and of course psychotic episodes for some people," said Chassman.

Which is why Adams says the lawmakers need to use a broad brush when painting the new legislation. That way chemists can just keep moving on to a new synthetic drug each time one gets outlawed.