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.
The
average life expectancy among krokodil addicts in Russia is two to
three years, according to Time, which called the narcotic "the
most horrible drug in the world." Gangrene and amputations are
common, and the toxic mix dissolves jawbones and teeth, much like the
methamphetamine that Walter White cooks in Breaking Bad.
As
with all intravenous drug addicts, krokodil users are susceptible to
HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases, and have compromised
immune systems.
One
recovering Russian krokodil addict, Irina Pavlova, told Time in 2011
that she injected the drug almost daily for six years. She has a
speech impediment and impaired motor skills because of the resulting
brain damage.
Her
brother was among the dozen or so addicts she shot up with.
"Practically all of them are dead now," she said. "For
some, it led to pneumonia, some got blood poisoning, some had an
artery burst in their heart, some got meningitis, others simply rot."
A
Russian woman using krokodil in June 2011 told The
Independent that a fellow junkie refused to go to the hospital.
"Her
flesh is falling off and she can hardly move anymore," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment