Krokodil - horrific new drug

[DisaFear]

Extract from the main article, found here.

The home-made drug that Oleg and Sasha inject is known as krokodil, or "crocodile". It is desomorphine, a synthetic opiate many times more powerful than heroin that is created from a complex chain of mixing and chemical reactions, which the addicts perform from memory several times a day. While heroin costs from £20 to £60 per dose, desomorphine can be "cooked" from codeine-based headache pills that cost £2 per pack, and other household ingredients available cheaply from the markets.

It is a drug for the poor, and its effects are horrific. It was given its reptilian name because its poisonous ingredients quickly turn the skin scaly. Worse follows. Oleg and Sasha have not been using for long, but Oleg has rotting sores on the back of his neck.

"If you miss the vein, that's an abscess straight away," says Sasha. Essentially, they are injecting poison directly into their flesh. One of their friends, in a neighbouring apartment block, is further down the line.

"She won't go to hospital, she just keeps injecting. Her flesh is falling off and she can hardly move anymore," says Sasha. Photographs of late-stage krokodil addicts are disturbing in the extreme. Flesh goes grey and peels away to leave bones exposed. People literally rot to death."

I hear the images of it are horrendous, and if you are squeamish (like me), do not look for them. Like, really bad. The forum that I found this article on, people are giving gruesome descriptions

I repeat, do not look at image, my hardened friend went for ages

[taiga]

Saw the images, the people look like Zombies =\

[nubs]

I know some people won't like what I'm about to say, but this is exactly why drugs should be legalised - decriminalised at the least

The increase in price due to its illegality is forcing people to resort to much more harmful and devastating drugs such as this one. These people are going to use regardless of the legal status, why not make it safer for them? At least that way they won't contract HIV from dirty syringes, they won't have to resort to substitutes like krokodil, and they won't need resort to violent crimes to pay for their drug habit.

Furthermore, millions of dollars wouldn't have to be wasted every year in an effort to fight this useless drug war

[DisaFear]

If I understand the comments correctly, ex-addicts wouldn't appreciate that

[nubs]

They might get annoyed and tempted again, but if you want to take a utilitarian approach, it's the right thing to do

Anyway, if they've truly gotten over their addiction, it shouldn't matter to them what other people choose to do with their own body. At least this way drug addicts will be causing much less harm to themselves and won't feel alienated anymore. That way they won't feel pressured to be all secretive with their drug use and may be more inclined to seeking out help when there isn't a system that pretty much condemns them for using.

[VivaTequila]

it's just surprising that it's so easy to synthesise as it's so close to codeine, and whats more is that in my country the control over these drugs is very limited. at least in australia, lower socio economic areas are not allowed pseudoephedrine (sudafed) and are given sudafed pe instead which has nothing used to make amphetamines in it.

medvedev and putin have been terrible for my country and now its again on the brink of civil war (to exaggerate things a bit), and last time that happened we wound up with communism

[thushan]

My god.

Another reason why I want to do medicine. Really want to help these kinda people. Somehow.

[happycat]

I saw the images and so that you guys don't have to I'll give it a nickname, FleshEater. It's accurate enough, I'm hard and not affected by what I saw.

[VivaTequila]

Here's a search for 'krokodil' in Russian. You'll find lots more results.

source: I am russian. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BB&oq=%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE&aq=2&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=197539l214723l0l222754l54l54l25l0l0l1l946l3990l5-1.4l5l0

[ulbasour]

What causes these effects is not the krokodil itself, but the fact that the people who cook it are so desparate to achieve a heroin hit that their cooking process is rushed and unsafe - in the end they are literallu pumping hydrochloric acid straight into their veins. There are places on russia that are wsstelands, filled with commission housing ruins and streets laden with syringes. It s in these places where thousands of poor heroin addicts cook and shoot up on krokidil, consistently (sometimes for many days straihht without break). Russian gov does next to nothing to solve the problem. On another note, i recommend people to watch Swansea Lovestory, i watched it at school ages ago, it gives a lurid insight into the heroin problem of swsnsea in england.

[VivaTequila]

What causes these effects is not the krokodil itself, but the fact that the people who cook it are so desparate to achieve a heroin hit that their cooking process is rushed and unsafe - in the end they are literallu pumping hydrochloric acid straight into their veins. There are places on russia that are wsstelands, filled with commission housing ruins and streets laden with syringes. It s in these places where thousands of poor heroin addicts cook and shoot up on krokidil, consistently (sometimes for many days straihht without break). Russian gov does next to nothing to solve the problem. On another note, i recommend people to watch Swansea Lovestory, i watched it at school ages ago, it gives a lurid insight into the heroin problem of swsnsea in england.

Hey I'm interested in what you have to say... can you source me to whatever said that it's not the actual drug but a byproduct of the cooking process? I have a bit of an affinity and curiosity for drug and specifically opiate synthesis

Also our government is fixing the problem as they have made codeine (the predecessor to desomorphine/krokodil) prescription only, or they are at least trying to phase it in. i'm not sure where the situtation is officially at, but i know it's an ongoing process. it's more the fact that my country has enough infrastructural issues on it's hands

[ulbasour]

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/107349/could-the-krokodil-drug-epidemic-poison-america/

Here is a link. The actual drug doesng rot the flesh, but all the industrial crap they put in aswell that does, which makes the cooking and consuming process malignant.