Even if one batch in 10 contains something really toxic like WP, it's going to cause a lot of damage...
The extraction of morphine-like alkaloids may not work in the same way as with amphetamines, as they are also soluble to alkaline solutions because of the phenol -OH, and it seems that morphine freebase is not soluble to petroleum ether (but is soluble to some other nonpolar solvents). Maybe it's some misunderstanding about how it should be purified by extraction.
Actually, looking at solubility data, codeine freebase isn't soluble in pet ether either, and I think that must have been the real reason why my own codeine extraction didn't do the trick as I expected...
I'm certainly not pushing desomorphine as a drug of abuse. I'm trying to work out if their is a simple, reliable way to remove the species that apparently causing the tremendous damage. Nobody making in in their kitchen is going to extract desomorphine into chloroform, wash back into hydrochloric acid and distil of said acid to arrive at samples that only contain compounds with a basic nitrogen. It may be argued that the 'expert samples' aren't krokodil but whatever the term, if 3M H2O2 will oxidise the species to -PO4 3- so people aren't being destroyed then all to the good.
That people ARE prepared to destroy themselves so quickly while looking at others going down the same path then it's safe to say that it's in the subjective class of Diconal/Ketogan/Levo-Dromoran i.e. both opioid and NMDA activity. The difference is, while the others last 6-8 hours, desomorphine lasts just 1 hour. That much euphoria with such brevity isn't going to be dependence-forming, it's going to be compelling. I realize that Russian HR is in it's early days but they repeatedly say that psychological addiction can occur after 1-2 shots.
I note the Swiss experience with Permonid describes it as being:
+ 'faster acting and more effective than morphine'
but
- 'relatively more severe respiratory depression produced at equianalgesic doses, as well as a high incidence of other side effects such as hypotension and urinary retention, were felt to outweigh any potential advantages'
I don't know of the experiences of others but some pretty large Swiss trials using morphine to substitute diamorphine showed that beyond a certain (equipotent) dose, users were unable to differentiate the two drugs. Safe to say that I WOULD know if it was a joint opioid/NMDA antagonist; people hooked on that rush used to mix methadone wet-amps & cyclizine aka (Valoid™) travel sickness medication. We saw a lot of strange things at Lifeline in the 80s. Since I like pills & will vap or snort rather than inject pure material... I wasn't quite dragged in.
Realistically, it can happen in any nation where codeine is [P] or lower.
I will bet $1 that officially or not, Poland is now the home of Krokodil.