Flesh-rotting 'krokodil' drug emerges in USA

Michael Winter, USA TODAY9:08 p.m. EDT September 26, 2013

Two cases in Arizona are the first involving caustic, heroin-like IV drug that originated in Russia.

A powerful heroin-like drug that rots flesh and bone has made its first reported appearance in the United States, an Arizona health official says.

Known on the street as "krokodil," the caustic homemade opiate is made from over-the-counter codeine-based headache pills mixed with iodine, gasoline, paint thinner or alcohol. When it's injected, the concoction destroys a user's tissue, turning the skin scaly and green like a crocodile. Festering sores, abscesses and blood poisoning are common.

Frank LoVecchio, the co-medical director at the Banner Good Samaritan Poison & Drug Information Center, told KPHO-TV that Arizona health officials have seen two cases during the past week.

"As far as I know, these are the first cases in the United States that are reported," he said. "So we're extremely frightened."

LoVecchio did not say where in the state the patients were located or provide details about their conditions.

The drug — chemically called desomorphine — emerged around 2002 in Siberia and the Russian Far East but has swept across the country in just the past three years, according to a Time magazine investigation.

Krokodil became popular in Russia because heroin can be difficult to obtain and is expensive. Krokodil costs three times less, and the high is similar to heroin though much shorter, usually 90 minutes.

FULL STORY: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/26/heroin-krokodi...

Favorite

2 members favorited this

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by Ragnarok on December 9, 2013 at 1:02pm: Good thing cannabis is illegal so we can get cases like these.

Comment by truth on December 9, 2013 at 12:49pm: Teen Reportedly Injects Krokodil Into Genitals

According to José Sotero Ruiz Hernández, an official with Mexico’s National Institute of Migration, a 17-year-old girl in Puerto Vallarta presented lacerations to her genitals that she said were caused by her addiction to krokodil.

Comment by Ragnarok on October 16, 2013 at 1:17pm: UPDATE: Flesh-eating krokodil drug spreads from Arizona to Chicago, as doctor says it might have been sold as heroin to unwitting victims

10 October 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451682/Flesh-eating-krokod...

Comment by Sweettina2 on September 30, 2013 at 10:30pm: Wow, this is awful. Probably a government invention for genocide. Thanks for posting this, sharing.

Comment by truth on September 30, 2013 at 6:18pm: Russia's flesh-eating drug Krokodil actually has origins in America

Monday, September 30, 2013 3:33 PM

Having spent the last decade wreaking havoc in Russia, Krokodil – the cheap, addictive, heroin-like opioid (that also happens to eat your flesh) – has made landfall in the U.S. According to reports from Arizona's Banner Poison Control Center, two recently documented cases of the drug's use are believed to be the first in America. But that's only half true.

That's because Krokodil actually has its beginnings here in the States. The skin-melting drug's reptilian moniker is in fact the street name for a highly impure form of a synthetic opioid known as desomorphine – a potent derivative of morphine that was first synthesized (and patented!) in the early 1930s, right here in the U.S. of A.