Over the last year, two men in Duncan, Oklahoma have fallen victim to a kind of moonshine heroin called desomorphine, dubbed “krokodil” due to it’s horrific side-effects. It has also spread to other states, including Arizona, Illinois and a possible spread to Utah, however in reality this is probably only a very conservative estimate compared to the actual numbers using due to the reluctance of authorities to admit the prevalence of the drug.
Krokodil, Russian for crocodile, was first reported in Siberia, Russia in 2002, but has since moved to other European countries and the USA, and is said to emerge in the UK soon too, spreading as a result of its ease to make and cost compared to conventional versions of heroin. The side-effects quickly became clear: the reason for the street name krokodil is due to the users forming sores that turn skin green, scaly and bumpy like a crocodile’s skin. Continuous use of the drug causes rapid deterioration of tissue, phlebitis, and gangrene, causing amputations of limbs in long-term regular users.
These side-effects combined with the sedative and analgesic effects affecting the user’s ability to notice the painful and horrendous side-effects and the speed and force of withdrawal causing a user to inject the drug several times a day reduces the addict’s life expectancy significantly and is usually no longer than two years from the start of addiction. The recent media coverage of the drug has surfaced several horrific images of users and the side effects.
Some addicts may not show outward signs of usage, such as the sores or scaly skin, but this does not mean– as Angie Neitzel and her sister, the two cases of addiction in Illinois, explains- that the user has escaped the side effects, instead the drug is rotting the tissue on the inside of the body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-f-adGp8Y
Although desomorphine is a Schedule I drug in the US and controlled internationally under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, the drug is made by readily available and legal ingredients, such as over the counter medicines, gasoline, and paint thinner as well as red phosphorus, iodine and hydrochloric acid. In 30 minutes, after boiling, distilling and shaking the ingredients together, the resultant orange to brown coloured liquid is injected and the high takes affect very quickly after.
It is estimated that in Russia 30,000 people die every year from the affects of this drug, and a greater 1 million are said to be users. The sad peculiarity of the rehab system in Russia is that the government does little to support them or addicts in general. Vice have made a documentary about this drug which has spread awareness of the issues surrounding the usage of this drug.
In a very telling interview the Independent made in 2011, in which addicts bluntly discussed there addiction to krokodil, a ex-addict explained the reason users keep on the drug despite the side effects:
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