Krokodil: The Drug that Eats Junkies
June 22nd, 2011Via: Independent:
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.
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Unlike heroin, where the hit can last for several hours, a krokodil high only lasts between 90 minutes and two hours, says Zhenya. Given that the “cooking” process takes at least half an hour, being a krokodil addict is basically a full-time job.
“I remember one day, we cooked for three days straight,” says one of Zhenya’s friends. “You don’t sleep much when you’re on krokodil, as you need to wake up every couple of hours for another hit. At the time we were cooking it at our place, and loads of people came round and pitched in. For three days we just kept on making it. By the end, we all staggered out yellow, exhausted and stinking of iodine.”
In Tver, most krokodil users inject the drug only when they run out of money for heroin. As soon as they earn or steal enough, they go back to heroin. In other more isolated regions of Russia, where heroin is more expensive and people are poorer, the problem is worse. People become full-time krokodil addicts, giving them a life expectancy of less than a year.
Zhenya says every single addict he knows in his town has moved from heroin to krokodil, because it’s cheaper and easier to get hold of. “You can feel how disgusting it is when you’re doing it,” he recalls. “You’re dreaming of heroin, of something that feels clean and not like poison. But you can’t afford it, so you keep doing the krokodil. Until you die.”
interesting. in nz people in the 1970s invented “homebake” as a heroin subsitute. also based on codeine. don’t know if “homebake” is desomorphine, but “homebake” from what i can remember was not overly toxic like this Russian story.
Shooting pills is more common than you’d think, but its all about how you do it. Some (hydromorphone) for example, actually give a better high than heroin (cant remember if its the rush or the nod). I don’t think russians know how to put it through a micron filter to keep the ‘crud’ out of their veins. Most of the harm likely boils down to poor technique and a lack of applied harm reduction.
Shooting amphetamine recreationally started in the US in the 50s or 60s when someone figured out how that you could leach out the contents of OTC inhalers and put it in your arm.
ive seen some footage of the necrosis that is a result of this sh*t, and it does bring to mind survivors of necrotizing fasciitis.
NSFW or the faint of heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6v-43-1PU
maybe those huge caches of heroine that went missing years ago are the only thing keeping the prices up, despite being at all time lows relatively. more casualties of the ongoing class warfare that so many like to filter out of their perception. maybe when people start needing treatment en mass for the chronic stress disorders living in this kind of culture/society/environment/warzone causes they will care enough to end it, prolly not tho.
too bad this canadian safe injection isnt more popular, it would save alot of lives if only it were utilized, i suppose i aught to know the agenda by now tho.
http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/
i do see the potential in these programs for massive abuse tho, especially considering the history of predation on at-risk populations by private and defense medical research programs. but still… i want people to be better/safer/healthier/smarter.