Flesh Eating Heroin Hits Illinois!

A flesh eating disease has made its way from Russia to the U.S– and in a matter of a week it made its way from the west to the Midwest, more specifically Joliet. The flesh eating disease has surfaced in drug users. People think they are buying heroine on the streetsand they are getting something called ‘krokodil‘ instead. It is the Russian word for ‘crocodile’– named so because it first creates a green scaly wound on your skin before it begins to spread and eat away at your flesh, muscles, even tendons.

Dr. Abhin Singla is an addiction specialist with presence St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet. He has been reading about the effects of krokodil for 10 years. Last week it surfaced in Arizona and Utah. Sunday it walked into his hospital in the southwest suburbs. “All I smelled was rotten flesh. I knew exactly what that was,” Dr. Singla said.

Two women in their 20′s thought they were buying heroine and got krokodil instead. Within minutes of administering the injection, their symptoms resembled those of krokodil users, but the damage now is far more extensive. Krokodil is made of gasoline, paint thinner, butane and other harmful chemicals. And it’s made its way to Joliet of all places because, the doctor thinks– so many interstates pass by or go through Joliet.

According to Dr. Singla, krokodil hit near-epidemic proportions in Russia between 2000 and 2002. It is one third the cost of heroin and three times as potent. But the high doesn’t last as long. Overdose is common. In the end, if the addiction doesn’t kill the user, history shows the flesh eating disease typically does.

Copyright WGN News

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Krokodil, the skin-eating drug, may have claimed its first U.S. victim.  The heroin-like drug, which originated in Russia began cropping up in the U.S. last month and has been found in Utah, Arizona and Illinois recently. The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is investigating the deaths of two Oklahoma men who are linked to the drug, KSOW reported. One of those men is 33-year-old Justin McGree, who died last year. McGee’s friend Chelle Fancher said McGee had taken Krokodil. “(His) skin was missing,” she told KOCO Oklahoma City. “The doctors say it ate him from the inside out. It wasn’t until the next day that they told us that is was Krokodil meth.” The drug is an opiate, but like meth is made from crude materials that are readily available, such as gasoline. If the deaths are connected to Krokodil, the drug may have been in the U.S. earlier than authorities have suspected.

From TIME.com

The Damaging Effects of Krokodil

(Updated: Sept 28th 2012 at 8:00PM) These images are EXTREMELY graphic. I’m only posting these so people can see the DANGER in this new drug called Krokodil. It comes from Russia and is new to the states and becoming more and more popular. I pray for these people who are currently going through the drugs effects. I hope the DEA can get this off of the streets and out of our country!

Images from BuzzFeed.com

Images from http://roizman.livejournal.com/1222804.html

New Drug Called ‘Krokodil’ Eats Flesh

The first cases of a terrifying new drug called ‘Krokodil’ that eats flesh from the inside out, is flammable and leaves addicts with reptilian-like skin have been reported this week in Arizona – and the state fears the beginning of an epidemic. Popular in Russia, Krokodil is homemade, is three-times cheaper than heroin and created by mixing codeine with gasoline or oil, filtering it and then injecting the rancid concoction into the users body.

Banner’s Poison Control Center most likely encountered the drug when two addicts arrived in emergency rooms with their flesh hanging off their body, exposing bone or with skin resembling that of a crocodile, hence its name.

  

‘We’ve had two cases this past week that have occurred in Arizona,’ said Dr. Frank LoVecchio, the co-medical director at Banner’s Poison Control Center. Continual use of Krokodil causes blood vessels to burst, leaving skin green and scaly among addicts eventually causing gangrene and their flesh to begin to rot. Rabid use in Russia has caused up to 2.5 million people to register and seek treatment as addicts and the average life span for a user is only two to three years.

‘When drug users do it repeatedly, the skin sloughs. It causes hardening of their skin. It will cause necrosis,’ explained LoVecchio. LoVechhio says that the two cases he has encountered are most likely linked and he declined to comment on the appearance of the two users. ‘Where there is smoke there is fire, and we’re afraid there are going to be more and more cases,’ said LoVechhio.

In Russia, Krokodil usage is spreading like a virus among young people and according to a Time magazine investigation, even those who manage to quit their addiction come away disfigured for life. Some users in Russia develop brain damage and speech impediments in addition to the horrific scars. 

Krokodil, whose medical name is desomorphine, has the same mental effect as heroin but is produced with over-the-counter codeine and mixed with gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid and even the red phosphorous scraped from the tips of matches.

Prevalent in Siberia and the Russian Far East, the explosion of users began in 2002, but over the past five years in Russia, usage has trebled. In 2011 alone, Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service confiscated 65 million doses. The flesh rotting that is specific to Krokodil occurs directly at the injection site which could be anywhere from the feet to the forehead to the more traditional arms. According to Time magazine, ‘Gangrene and amputations are a common result, while porous bone tissue, especially in the lower jaw, often starts to dissipate, eaten up by the drug’s acidity.’