PHOENIX -- There is a warning for a new designer drug from Russia that has made its way into the Valley.
The drug is called Krokodil, Russian for crocodile, and is a deadly homemade mixture of codeine, red phosphorus, iodine, and paint thinner. It is also known as desomorphine, a cousin of morphine.
When taken, Krokodil eats skin from the inside out. The drug gets its name from the reptile-like skin it gives users.
The skin area surrounding where users inject Krokodil becomes discolored and scaly, and the tissue starts to die.
“When you inject this very acidic substance into your flesh or your skin or your veins, you can get infection,” said Dr. Ayrn O’Connor, medical toxicologist at Banner Good Samaritan and the Poison and Drug Information Center. “You can get tissue destruction and tissue death.”
Krokodil can be seen as a substitute for heroin. It is a third the price of heroin and about 10 times more potent than morphine.
“It has a very rapid onset of actions, so you still get that really nice rush which is why heroin addicts are using or abusing,” O’Connor said.
Banner’s Poison Control Center has encountered several cases of Krokodil use in the Valley and they are the first in the United States.
“Folks get what’s called not only gangrene, but they’ll get secondary infections, they’ll get boney infections. And ultimately they can either get amputations or they can have overwhelming infection, and that’s what can threaten their lives,” O’Connor said.
Once people start using Krokodil, they only have a 1-2 year life expectancy.
O’Connor said it will be important to survey closely for any increase or spike in Krokodil’s use in the Valley.
“Hopefully we won’t suffer the same kind of fate that Russia has seen,” O’Connor said.
The drug is called Krokodil, Russian for crocodile, and is a deadly homemade mixture of codeine, red phosphorus, iodine, and paint thinner. It is also known as desomorphine, a cousin of morphine.
When taken, Krokodil eats skin from the inside out. The drug gets its name from the reptile-like skin it gives users.
The skin area surrounding where users inject Krokodil becomes discolored and scaly, and the tissue starts to die.
“When you inject this very acidic substance into your flesh or your skin or your veins, you can get infection,” said Dr. Ayrn O’Connor, medical toxicologist at Banner Good Samaritan and the Poison and Drug Information Center. “You can get tissue destruction and tissue death.”
Krokodil can be seen as a substitute for heroin. It is a third the price of heroin and about 10 times more potent than morphine.
“It has a very rapid onset of actions, so you still get that really nice rush which is why heroin addicts are using or abusing,” O’Connor said.
Banner’s Poison Control Center has encountered several cases of Krokodil use in the Valley and they are the first in the United States.
“Folks get what’s called not only gangrene, but they’ll get secondary infections, they’ll get boney infections. And ultimately they can either get amputations or they can have overwhelming infection, and that’s what can threaten their lives,” O’Connor said.
Once people start using Krokodil, they only have a 1-2 year life expectancy.
O’Connor said it will be important to survey closely for any increase or spike in Krokodil’s use in the Valley.
“Hopefully we won’t suffer the same kind of fate that Russia has seen,” O’Connor said.
By Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor
9 hours ago
Here's a look at five of the most potent of these street drugs.
Krokodil
Few street drugs have as wretched a reputation as desomorphine, a cheap derivative of codeine that's mixed with gasoline, oil, alcohol or paint thinner. Addicts shoot the concoction directly into their bodies with a hypodermic needle; the drug causes dark, scaly patches of dead and decaying skin. These gave rise to the street name "krokodil," or crocodile. [Trippy Tales: The History of 8 Hallucinogens]
While krokodil had previously been confined to Russia and former Soviet Bloc nations, a few cases of krokodil use have started appearing in the United States and other countries. Even those users who kick the habit are often severely disfigured for life, suffering serious scarring, bone damage, amputated limbs, speech impediments, poor motor skills and varying degrees of brain damage.
2C-P
A little-known synthetic hallucinogen with only a brief history of use, 2C-P is reportedly a long-lasting and very potent drug. Its intense psychedelic effects don't begin until a few hours after a person takes it, but they can last for 10 to 20 hours, according to law enforcement officials.
At a concert in Middlebury, Conn., in September, four teenagers were hospitalized after collapsing almost simultaneously — police suspect 2C-P was the culprit, according to the Hartford Courant. "It was like a light switch went off," acting Middlebury Police Chief Richard Wildman said in a press statement. Officers used CPR and a defibrillator to treat a teenage male who had stopped breathing and had no pulse, the Courant reports.
Butane hash oil
Also known as amber, honey, wax, ear wax and by its initials BHO, butane hash oil is a highly concentrated form of the active ingredient in marijuana (tetrahydrocannabinol or THC). Use of BHO is known as "dabbing," because of the way the drug is ingested: Users place a small dab of the substance on a hot, metal surface, then inhale the resulting puff of smoke, according to SF Weekly.
The high is nothing like regular marijuana: It's not uncommon for people to lose consciousness after inhaling BHO. "Things like this never happened until the popularization of hash oil in recent years," Dale Gieringer of NORML, a marijuana advocacy group, told SF Weekly. "The dangers are dire enough to merit a special warning."
Molly
The active ingredient in the popular club drug Ecstasy is MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine), and Molly is generally considered the most-refined, crystalline form of MDMA. A potent hallucinogen, Molly has been blamed for drug overdoses that killed four people this year, the New York Daily News reports.
One problem is the questionable purity of any synthetic drug, according to experts. "It's exactly the same phenomenon that occurred with Ecstasy a decade ago," Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, told the Daily News. "Ecstasy had terrible reliability, and it's the same with Molly. Though it's being marketed as pure MDMA, it's a hoax."
Suboxone
Buprenorphine, marketed as Suboxone, is an opiate painkiller that's often used to wean addicts off of more powerful opiates like heroin and hydrocodone. Substance abuse experts praise its success at treating addictions, and about 3 million Americans have used it for this purpose, according to the National Pain Report.
But a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that the number of emergency room visits involving Suboxone had increased by a factor of 10 from 2005 to 2010. More than half of these visits were for recreational use of the drug. "The buprenorphine in these visits may have been misused or abused, either for psychoactive effects or in an attempt to self-treat for opioid dependence," according to the SAMHSA report.
Follow Marc Lallanilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.
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