New York City police raided five bodegas in Brooklyn on Wednesday, a day after a wave of suspected overdoses from the synthetic drug K2 sent at least 33 people to the hospital and raised fears that the use of a substance that officials had indicated was on the wane was instead on the rise.

The police found no K2, the synthetic chemical drug meant to mimic marijuana — which is illegal in New York State — in any of their raids, James Byrne, a spokesman for the Police Department, said. People at three stores, including the Big Boy Deli on Broadway, were arrested on charges of selling improperly taxed cigarettes, Mr. Byrne said.

The raids were just one reverberation from the localized public health emergency, which unfolded in several square blocks around an intersection on the border of the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick neighborhoods.