Krokodil

[rahli]

Oleg glances furtively around him and, confident that nobody is watching, slips inside the entrance to a decaying Soviet-era block of flats, where Sasha is waiting for him. Ensconced in the dingy kitchen of one of the apartments, they empty the contents of a blue carrier bag that Oleg has brought with him – painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil, and an array of vials, syringes, and cooking implements.

Half an hour later, after much boiling, distilling, mixing and shaking, what remains is a caramel-coloured gunge held in the end of a syringe, and the acrid smell of burnt iodine in the air. Sasha fixes a dirty needle to the syringe and looks for a vein in his bruised forearm. After some time, he finds a suitable place, and hands the syringe to Oleg, telling him to inject the fluid. He closes his eyes, and takes the hit.

Russia has more heroin users than any other country in the world – up to two million, according to unofficial estimates. For most, their lot is a life of crime, stints in prison, probable contraction of HIV and hepatitis C, and an early death. As efforts to stem the flow of Afghan heroin into Russia bring some limited success, and the street price of the drug goes up, for those addicts who can't afford their next hit, an even more terrifying spectre has raised its head.

Continued ........

Edited June 26, 2011 by rahli

[7baz]

this is actually nothing new.. already happening in our own backyard.

the story is kinda exaggerated....

here in oz heroin addicts run to morphine pills and extract those for a hit...

its pretty much the same thing as krokodil.

its sad , but its not just Russia , its everywhere.

Russia has 2 million heroin addicts... go to Afghanistan and see how many addicts there are , a damn sight more then 2 million , try over 1.5 million in the capital city of Kabul alone.....

i sincerely doubt russia has the highest heroin count in the world , where the effin hell do media get there stats from ?

you can buy pure made up heroin on the streets of Afghanistan openly and freely no laws broken , u cant do that in russia lol , plus its cheap as hell compared to any neighboring country.

Edited June 26, 2011 by 7baz

[Psylo]

I was searching for references to the claim of Russia has more heroin users than any other country in the world, and while it doesn't confirm the statement, I found an interesting paper on heroin trends.

http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/2.2_Opium-heroin.pdf

[7baz]

me too Psylo Dread

after doing a lil research i see i got my numbers a lil mixed up with opium users and herion users.

it seams china has more heroin users then Russia at 2.2 million.

Edited June 26, 2011 by 7baz

[rahli]

Same as morphine?

I know which one I would rather shoot up!!

[7baz]

Desomorphine (Dihydrodesoxymorphine, Permonid, also known as Krokodil) is an opiate analogue invented in 1932 in the United States, that is a derivative of morphine, where the 6-hydroxy group has been removed and the 7,8 double bond has been saturated. It has sedative and analgesic effects, and is around 8 times more potent than morphine.[1][2][3] It was used in Switzerland under the brand name Permonid, and was described as having a fast onset and a short duration of action, with relatively little nausea or respiratory depression compared to equivalent doses of morphine. The traditional synthesis of desomorphine starts from α-chlorocodide, which is itself obtained by reacting thionyl chloride with codeine. By catalytic reduction, α-chlorocodide gives dihydrodesoxycodeine, which yields desomorphine on demethylation.[4][5]

This drug attracted attention in 2010 in Russia due to an upsurge in clandestine production, presumably due to its relatively simple synthesis from codeine.[6] The street name in Russia is krokodil (crocodile) and it is used as a cheaper alternative to heroin, as codeine tablets are available without a prescription. Abuse of home-made desomorphine was first reported in eastern Siberia in 2002, but has since spread throughout Russia and the neighboring former Soviet republics. The drug is easily made from codeine, iodine and red phosphorus in a similar process to the manufacture of methamphetamine from pseudoephedrine, but desomorphine made this way is highly impure and contaminated with various toxic and corrosive byproducts. Since this mix is routinely injected immediately with little or no further purification, "Krokodil" has become notorious for producing severe tissue damage and gangrene, sometimes requiring limb amputation, in long-term users

[tripsis]

Fuck, that picture is intense rahli.

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.

Sounds like a seriously bad drug...

Edited June 26, 2011 by tripsis

[AndyAmine.]

Krokodil is NOT the same thing as home bake heroin as made in Australia, thats just silly dude.,

Krokodil is basically a RP/I2 reduction (ala met*h) but codine pills replace nasal decongestant pills/.

Then, they shoot it up without cleaning it up, so they are injecting unsterilized, extremely acidic/basic solutions still full of all kinds of side chain reaction by products and the shit left in the products they are using for precursors and solvents etc. and that is apparently the main reason they are getting necrotizing fasciitis,

The kind of funny thing is that they arent even getting the drug they are apparently trying to make by using this process, and apparently the majority of the rush thhey get is from all the bullshit in the mix they are whacking up.

[coin]

they must be getting *some* of the drug...else why would you sit around alternating cooking & shooting up while your tissue is rotting away? perhaps a lot of addicts see it as a short-term thing at first, thinking they'll just do it until they can get heroin again

i don't know enough chem - but are there some simple further procedures addicts could learn to clean up the product and reduce the damage at least a little bit?

[woof woof woof]

krokodil = dutch for crocodile. very appropriately named looking at that defleshed arm pic.

[Sheather]

Yeah it mentions that in the article, russian for crocodile too I assume.

A friend of mine read through this and laughed at the apparent hearsay and unsourced information, either way though I'll bet the drug problem over there, and most places is hardly something to be laughing at.

[coin]

to me, that pic just looks like it's fake ....or the wound has been cleaned up majorly ?

hmm ok...I just looked up some other vids - not too hard to find - and there are some cheap russian amputations going on.

pretty sad

I wanted to see if there was some fake scare stuff going on...don't want to link

Edited June 27, 2011 by coin

[AndyAmine.]

The problem is very real. those images are taken in hospital after the wounds have been cared for.

There are lots of videos around as well if you have a search,.

Its called Krokodil because it starts off by making your skin rough and wrinkly like a crocodiles skin before it eats away flesh around the injection sites.

It is based on a Russian synth paper, there is a thread on one of the synth forums where a few guys have done a reasonable job of breaking down the stories and papers available and worked out whats going on (to some degree)

Have a search, youll find it.

Edited June 27, 2011 by AndyAmine.

[woof woof woof]

heh,... yeh,.. I replied before having read the article

there's some youtube krokodil footage...... but then I came accross this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNz7VY-JySI&feature=related

:-)

[Slybacon]

^^^^ that video was funny as, but it got me to U TUBIN Krokodil..... now I know most of you even tho Im saying don't are going to so I might as well post the link....

WARNING- VERY VERY VERY GRAPHIC!

EDIT>

I deleted, as I didn't want it embeded!

Here is the link

DO NOT WATCH ME

Edited June 28, 2011 by Slybacon

[rahli]

My leg hurts!!!!

[qualia]

"desomorphine" is just misinformation. this is actually the result of HAARP radiation turning on reptilian (aka "junk") DNA. the reason the chose impoverished russians is so people will think "pfft junkies they deserve it etc." and not look into it too muc, also because to most people all they'll see is a few images/youtube vids which are clearly fake, and won't look into it further. also the junkie byline further imprints the "drugs are bad" brainwashing mantra installed in the sleeping masses.

[tripsis]

HAARP, the answer to everything.

[coin]

what's the vid slybacon? is it relevant?

if someone here is saying "don't watch it" I usually take it seriously

[mac]

Its a cheap DIY style amputation with a bear grills type survival saw on a wire

no worse than the arm image but yeah rough

Edited June 28, 2011 by mac

[tripsis]

I didn't actually think it was too bad. Perhaps the lack of audio helped, coupled with the low resolution video. Pretty gruesome, but not overly bad.

[Slybacon]

Wow, it took me three times to watch it. I think its just the fact of Knowing what it is, and the fact the guy is fully awake assisting with the amputation....

How do you let it get like that!

At least he got some nice Painkillahs in the ER, we'll it is russia, maybe they just gave him some more Kroc....

[AndyAmine.]

there are quite a few videos around, the best ones have titles written in Russian so I cant find them without spending some time on it and I cant be assed.

[DarkSpark]

Same as morphine?

I know which one I would rather shoot up!!

 

yeah i just googled some pics the are fucked up :S i would have to say that if they are real then this shit is worse than what goes on here in aus for those suffering withdrawals...

my heart goes out to those suffering from addictions this bad. It really makes me so very sad they would knowingly take something that gives them roughly a 1 year life expectancy once you start using

a few links to some pictures to save people the hassle of googleing (i wont embed they ar ea tad on the gross side)

early stages

latter stages (not embedded for grossness)

http://animalnewyork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ROT4.jpg

http://morrisonworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/cache/51522_NpAdvHover.jpg

[tripsis]

This is really fucked up. I can't imagine the desperation that would drive people to knowingly (if they are actually educated in the dangers of this drug) take something that results in a fate such as what is depicted in those pictures. Even if they live through it, their lives would be ruined. I really feel for these people. They might just be 'worthless junkies' in most people's opinions, but they are still people.

I take it the woman in that first picture you posted DarkSpark is already dead? Not exactly what I'd consider early stages.