Bailie Nelson Life society and drugs Research Paper Desomorphine (Krokodil) The drug that I chose to write

about is desomorohine, commonly known as krokodil. In this paper I will talk about the history of the drug, where it came from, the effects it can have on your body, and many horrifying facts. This I kind of a new drug on the streets in the U.S. Not many people know much about this drug because of how new it is here. This drug is very dangerous and the effects that it could have on you are deadly. This drug is very bad and has a ton of health problems like other drugs but this drug eats away at your skin and its a terrible sight to see. Desomorphine is a synthetic form of morphine that is highly addictive with severe side effects. It is also used as a substitute for heroine because its cheaper and easier to make. Krokodil is a drug that has been around for about fifty years in the streets of Russia, It is very popular there. Krokodil is known to be about eight times more powerful than morphine and about two or three times more powerful than heroine. They say that it is very easy to make there because its made from codeine and you dont need any prescription for codeine you can buy it on the shelf in drug stores there. Research has shown the over 1,000,000 people in Russia have used tried or are on krocodil. Russia has a severe problem with heroin addiction, but when a heroin addict can no longer afford that drug, he can make up krokodil which has a stronger kick and costs about a tenth the price. But while the life expectancy of a Moscow

heroin addict is four to seven years, the life expectancy of a krokodil addict is just a year or two. At one meeting of drug enforcement officials, two regional governors reported that krokodil accounts for about half of all addictions and drug-related deaths in their regions. And in some other areas, krokodil has nearly replaced opiates as the drug of choice. It is estimated that somewhere between a few hundred thousand and a million people are injecting this deadly drug. Between 2009 and 2011, the amount of krokodil seized by law enforcement increased 23fold. In just the first three months of 2011, 65 million doses were seized. A long time ago desomorphine was used as a painkiller by medical doctors. But it only killed the pain for a short amount of time so they abandoned the use of it. There was never much said about the drug until people found out about its ability to kill pain and thats when the drug became very popular and had an outburst in Russia. The effects of this drug are horrible, it got the name for what it does to your skin, its starts to rot and eventually fall off entirely. When you inject krokodil the skin around the injection point become leathery and scaly. The name krokodil comes from the Russian name for crocodile and because of what it does to your skin after use of this drug. All the chemicals that are added into this drug can give you large infected areas that start to deteriorate and rot, kind of like gangrene. The skin also turns green and the flesh becomes grey, it gets severely peeled to where the tendons, muscles, and bones are showing in extreme cases. It rots the users skin from inside out and makes the user look like zombies you see in horror films we have today. When the skin starts to rot it creates a strong and nauseating smell. As easy as the ingredient to get, the effect of Krokodil is much less compare to Heroin. The high effect of Heroin could last from four to eight hours, while Krokodil will only last for 90 minutes. For these 90 minutes of

high effect. The high price of damage the Desomorphine drug users have to pay is enormous. On the injection site, the skin will turn green and scaly, the symptoms of gangrene. If injected not correctly into the vein, the area will abscess right away. The permanent effect on Krokodil drug user, due to the damage it caused, is erratic and jerky movement and speech impediments. There are some cases that include the disintegration of jawbones and teeth. When the cases are severe, amputations could not be avoided. US Drug Enforcement Administration has been monitoring the use of Krokodil since 2011. The cases which recently surfaced in US have been a warning in association with the usage of Krokodil. As of now, the DEA has not declared Krokodil as a controlled substance, waiting for a more substantial proof. The chemicals that cause the infections and skin deterioration are res phosphorus, gasoline, lighter fluid, paint thinner, and iodine. These chemicals are industrial grade not medical grade so they are highly contaminated with damaging substances. There is also no filtering or purification of the final product before injection so the addicts get the full effect of the chemicals. These chemicals are what make up the drug desomorohine. When they used to use it as a painkiller it obviously didnt have the effects such as the rotting skin, although still highly addictive and part of the reason the stopped using it for medical use, but because of the all the chemicals and house hold products used in the synthetic version of desomorphine that is causing the flesh eating symptoms and why they call it krokodil and the zombie drug. The life expectancy of regular users of krokodil is about two to three years after first using the drug. People use this drug because they like the effects but most commonly because they dont want to go through withdrawals. The withdrawals are very painful and unpleasant. Some of the symptoms are shaking, sweating, restlessness, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, and

others but they can last for a while and even when those symptoms are gone you still have long tern symptoms like depression and sleeplessness. Some of the other effects of this drug take a hard toll on your body, the use leads to infections of the heart, spine, brain, and lungs. Krokodil also leads to brain damage, organ failure, and necrosis. When a user decides that they want or need help with the drug, depending on how severe the case is they might have to get skin grafts and other intensive treatments. Sometimes the case is so sever they are not able to help save the limbs or lives of the users because of how serious the infection and other dangerous side effects of krokodil. Desomorphine Krokodil does not only cause the strongest level of addiction, but also is extremely hard to cure. Even after successfully enduring the withdrawal period, a former Krokodil addict may struggle with amputations, rotted teeth, hepatitis, brain damage, or any other long-term consequences. Therefore, the need for Desomorphine abuse therapy is an urgent concern today. The widely known therapy for opiate is currently ORT, working by gradually replace the opiate. It needs to note that methadone therapy can be illegal in some countries, though. The bad thing for users trying to stop using krokodil is that a lot of countries dont help them go through withdrawal and just let it run its course, another bad thing for these users is that its most commonly found in Russia and they are one of the countries. Several cases have been found in Utah, Arizona and Chicago. Crocodile drug addicts have been admitted with symptom of extreme gangrene and abscesses that the muscles, tendons and bones were exposed. Horrible Krokodil drug photos can be found on the internet. While these photos are indeed graphics, hope they served the purpose of showing people how horrible the effects of desomorphine is. In Russia, believed to be the origin of Krokodil, users chose Krokodil for its low price. The price of Krokodil can be less than one tenth of the price of

Heroin. The situation was worsened by the lack of drug treatment and lack of government contribution in this matter. Drug users are left to manage their addiction themselves. And when street price of Heroin is out of reach, they created a substitute. According to World Health Organization, Russian Federation is one of the highest rates of opiate users in the world. Heroin kills 30,000 people per year in Russia. Now half of the Heroin addicts are on krokodil therapy. Sources estimated around 5 percent of Russian drug users are on Krokodil and other homemade cocktail. That is about 100,000 people in total. The death from drug overdose in Russia rose by 20 percent in 2012. In total around 150,000 people died that year. According to Ivanov, the Drug Control Service chief, in some region of the country, 90 percent of the registered drug addicts use Krokodil. The case is worse in isolated parts of Russia. Here Heroin is supply is patchy, as the result, more people turned to Desomorphine addicts. This research shows how dangerous this drug is and what the cost of using this drug is. This also shows why its a bad idea and why it is a horrible sight to see that it is making its way to the U.S. This drug needs to be stopped and I hope I never meet anyone or see anyone on this horrifying drug.

Works Cited Drug abuse. "Drug Abuse | Effects of Desomorphine Abuse." Narconon | Drug Rehabilitation | Drug Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. Erowdid. "Erowid Desomorphine (Krokodil) Basics." Erowid. N.p., 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. Desomorphine. "The Flesh-Eating Drug: Krokodil Desomorphine." Krokodil | Desomorphine | Crocodile Drug. N.p., 6 July 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. HSDB. "Desomorphine - National Library of Medicine HSDB Database." TOXNET. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. Thoma, Mark. "Has Krokodil, "flesh-eating" narcotic from Russia, finally come to US?"