Washington 1/21/2012 1:20:00 AM
News / Health & Wellness

Homemade Heroin

A young man slides into his apartment in Russia where his girl friend is waiting for him.  With him he has a blue carrier bag and in it is painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil and a supply of vials, syringes and cooking implements.  


They boil, distill, mix and shake all these items together and get a caramel colored gunge and they put it in the syringe and get it into their bruised arms.  


Russia has more heroin users than any other country in the world.  Estimates put it at about two million.  For these people who use heroin their lives are of crime, stints in prison, contraction of HIV and hepatitis C and then they may die early.  There has been an effort to stop the flow of heroin into Russia and the street price of the drug goes up each day so there is an even more terrifying story that is happening.  


A homemade drug known as krokodil, or “crocodile”.  It is desomorphine, a synthetic opiate many times more powerful than heroin and it is created from a complex chain of mixing and chemical reactions.  Addicts do this mixing from memory several times a day.  Heroin can be expensive but this manmade drug is cheap.  It is known as drug for the poor and its effects are horrific.  


Its poisonous ingredients turn the skin scaly.  The users may also get rotting sores on their body.  One of the users who have been doing it for a period has her skin falling off and she can hardly move yet she keeps injecting it.  Russian heroin addicts learned how to do this about four years ago and there has been a steady rise in its use.  Heroin addiction kills 30,000 people per year in Russia.


Heroin rehabs find that this drug is one of the toughest to kick.


If you or your loved one needs more information about heroin, or the help of a drug rehab, call 1-877-340-3602 for immediate assistance.