“Destroys the blood vessels first then the surrounding flesh …”
The heroin knock-off drug Krokodil has just surfaced in the Chicago suburb of Joliet, where three patients were recently admitted for using the particularly gruesome drug which causes human flesh to rot from the inside out, as reported by Fox News on Oct. 10, 2013.
Reportedly first manufactured in Russia ten years ago as a cheap alternative to the much more expensive heroin, Krokodil derives its name from not only the scales on the skin of its victims, but also from the green tint it gives to the affected area as gangrene kills the flesh from deep within the human body and works its way to the surface.
Dr. Abhin Singla, the Director of Addiction Services at Joliet’s Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center, has described Krokodil is a toxic brew of powdered codeine tablets mixed with a slew of other liquids and chemicals such as gasoline, paint thinner, and butane in order to create an injectable drug.
According to drug rehabilitation and education website Narconon.com, Krokodil is the drug of choice for many cash-strapped Russians who are already addicted to heroin. The knock-off is usually a tenth of the price of heroin. It is slightly more expensive in the U.S, where a single hit of Krokodil goes for about $8, roughly a third the cost of heroin.
Dr. Singla gave this dire warning:
It’s about three times more potent than heroin, but the ‘high’ lasts only for a few hours.
Explaining the counterfeit heroin destroys the blood vessels first then the surrounding flesh, Dr. Singla gave a less than sunny diagnosis for those Krokodile has in its hellish grip:
The average life expectancy of someone using Krokodil is less than two years.
