The Drug that 'Eats Junkies'

*Post contains graphic imagery


Krokodil, or crocodile, is Russia's deadliest designer drug. The average user of krokodil, a dirty cousin of morphine that's spreading like a virus among Russian youth, does not live longer than two or three years, and the few who manage to quit usually come away badly disfigured.

 

The active component is codeine, a widely sold over-the-counter painkiller that is not toxic on its own. But to produce krokodil, whose medical name is desomorphine, addicts mix it with ingredients including gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous, which they scrape from the striking pads on matchboxes. The high lasts about an hour and a half, and it takes about an hour to cook it. It is around 8-10 times more potent than morphine.

 

In 2010, between a few hundred thousand and a million people, according to various official estimates, were injecting the resulting substance into their veins in Russia. It is so far the only country in the world to see the drug grow into an epidemic, primarily due to the difficulties users have in procuring heroin. Predictably, it has spread the fastest in the poorest and most remote parts of the country, like Vorkuta.

 

Pavlova, an ex-user remarks, ''The winters there last eight months of the year and the young people are in a constant state of boredom. Most of them drink and few of them work, the same as in hundreds of towns and villages across Russia's frozen north. Besides her, Pavlova says there were about a dozen krokodil addicts she hung around with, including her brother. "Practically all of them are dead now," she says. "For some it led to pneumonia, some got blood poisoning, some had an artery burst in their heart, some got meningitis, others simply rot."

 

The "rotting" explains the drug's nickname. At the injection site, which can be anywhere from the feet to the forehead, the addict's skin becomes greenish and scaly, like a crocodile's, as blood vessels burst and the surrounding tissue dies. 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.

 

As the number of users continues to rise, despite the widely known symptoms, the Russian government is struggling to get the situation under control.

Just like Xylazine in Puerto Rico, Russia's own private drug hell is gaining momentum with the latest in a new strain of illegal narcotics.
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Puerto Rico's Private Drug Hell

Deadly and more addictive than crystal meth. A drug with horrific sleep walking side effects - the horse tranquilizer Xylazine, known on the streets of Puerto Rico as 'Anaesthesia'. It's a shocking new drug that is unique to this island. It turns users into zombies, causing them to faze in and out of consciousness even while standing on their feet.

 

Xylazine first began appearing on the black market in Puerto Rico's horse farming towns in early 2000. It works as a suppressant on the central nervous system. It's so strong, Puerto Rican vets normally use it to tranquilize horses for dental work and castration procedures. Xylazine is cheap and easy to purchase on the black market without a veterinary license. One 100mg bottle can cost between $60 to $80 which can turn over $5-6,000 on the street once it has been cooked and prepared.

 

One in seven are drug users in Puerto Rico. Often the conditions on the streets are so bad that many addicts are happy to be sent to prison just to receive treatment. It is a country that has double the murders of New York but only half the population (3.7 million). On average there's a murder every 8 hours with 80% drug related.




With 90% of the world's cocaine coming from South America, and Puerto Rico becoming the cartels preferred route into cities on the east coast of America, how long will it be before drugs like Xylazine buries it's hooks further afield? The drugs crisis in Puerto Rico is sinking to new depths, as more and more addicts join the ranks of 'the living dead', turning this paradise into a 'zombie island'