A homemade drug that causes severe damage to the flesh has shown up in Arizona. Newsy reports that the drug, called Krokodil, had previously surfaced in Russia and it’s a disfiguring and possibly lethal mixture of codeine and hydrocarbons like oil, paint thinner, gasoline or alcohol.
Via Huffington Post:
According to doctors at Banner Poison Control Center, two cases of the drug have been reported in the state in the past week.
“As far as I know, these are the first cases in the United States that are reported… We’re extremely frightened,” Dr. Frank LoVecchio, the co-medical director at the center, told KLTV.
Users filter and boil the drug before injecting it. Although LoVecchio said users believe the process removes the impurities, they are wrong.
Once injected, the drug causes damage to blood vessels and tissue that cause flesh to rot from the inside out. The horrific sores that some users develop resemble crocodile skin, which lends the street drug its name. The average life expectancy of a krokodil user is about three years, according to KSAZ.
The main attraction is that it costs a lot less than heroin but produces a similar high. Yet you might want to google it to see what it does. The picture you see here is child’s play.