Krokodil: Has exotic 'flesh-eating' drug come to Arizona?

[Lanie]

PHOENIX -- It's a deadly drug with an exotic name. Krokodil is a potent substitute for heroin and it literally has been eating people alive. A homemade morphine derivative, krokodil (desomorphine) was first seen in Russia in 2003, although it didn't attract worldwide attention until 2010.
Although the Drug Enforcement Administration has not confirmed it, it looks like krokodil is now turning up in the U.S., including here in Arizona. In fact, there are concerns that Arizona could be the epicenter of krokodil's U.S. invasion.
The videos and photographs of people who have fallen victim to krokodil are horrifying.
It was a call to the Poison Control Center at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center that touched off a national alert. "In this case someone called and said we have a patient or two that may have used krokodil," Dr. Frank Lovecchio said. "They claimed to have used krokodil."
After receiving another call -- a similar call -- Lovecchio sounded the alarm.
"When I heard of these cases, we did try to alert other physicians because we thought it was pretty serious -- you know, very life threatening," he said.

The rest of the article is interesting. The way they make this is flat out suicide. Sometimes, they take it from gasoline. The high is ten times that of heroine.

That's scary.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

The rest of the article is interesting. The way they make this is flat out suicide. Sometimes, they take it from gasoline. The high is ten times that of heroine.

That's scary.

This is not something that people are likely to take by accident, right? Because unless someone's putting it on the street and telling people it's something else, sounds like Darwinism.

[Gingersnap]

Slate and a few other places have articles saying this latest epidemic is over-hyped. Who knows? Injectables are pretty limited in appeal compared to smoking or pill-popping.

I think a lot of the really ugly necrosis pix have come out of the former Soviet Union area. Drug users there may both hit it harder and be less inclined to show up at a clinic for treatment.