It’s called ”the most horrible drug in the world” – and
it’s come to Illinois. Dr. Abhin Singala, a specialist at Presence St.
Joseph Medical Center in the Chicago suburb of
Joliet, said he’s treating three people who took
“krokodil,” a cheap heroin knockoff from Russia
known to cause such extreme gangrene and
abscesses that a user’s muscles, tendons and bones can become exposed. “If you want to kill yourself, this is the way to do it,”
Singla said according to the Sun-Times. According to Joliet Patch, Singla is treating what
appear to be the first cases of krokodil reported in
the Chicago metro area. “As of late as last week, the first cases – a few
people in Utah and Arizona – were reported to have
been using the heroin-like drug, which rots the skin
from the inside out,” Singala said in a Tuesday press
release. “It is a horrific way to get sick. The smell of
rotten flesh permeates the room. Intensive treatment and skin grafts are required, but they often are not
enough to save limbs or lives.” While the drug has been in Russia for at least a
decade, krokodil is only now making its way to the
states. The first reported instances of the
intravaneous drug cropped up in Arizona roughly two
weeks ago. Krokodil, named for the scaly green appearance of
skin once gangrene sets in, rose to popularity in
Russia due to a heroin shortage. Also known as
desomorphine, the budget drug (roughly one-tenth
the cost of heroin) is made from codeine tablets
combined with substances like gasoline, paint thinner or lighter fluid. As Forbes notes, however,desomorphine itself isn’t
responsible for the “rotting from the inside-out” effect
of krokodil; the drug was in fact patented in the ’30s
and marketed in Switzerland under the brand name
Permonid. The deadly effects from illicit version of the
painkiller, however, stem from the substances
Forbes says “amateur chemists” don’t properly
remove. Still, those facts are of little comfort to Illinois health
officials. The collar counties outside Chicago have
seen an alarming spike in heroin deaths in the past
few years. The average life expectancy for a krokodil addict,
Singala said, is less than two years. In Will County where Singala is treating the krokodil
cases, he warns ”Will County’s already burgeoning
heroin epidemic may have created a tolerance level
to the point where users are now looking for cheaper
and better highs.”


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