^ @johnny blue - i think you completely missed the point of my post.
What I'm saying is that it's a media beat-up.
People see something on tv about a foreign place they know nothing about, and a scary "new drug".
Discussion turns to "
will it come here?"
This is often subtly - or explicitly - encouraged by media, politicians and the like.
It's a classic "
folkdevil" - you know what that is?
Folk devils are a sort of scapegoat or some kind potential 'threat' to society - more commonly
people (or groups of people) - but also drugs, anything with a hint of menace (depicted on the tv news with tense sounding scary music) used to create a "moral panic" and strike fear into a population - or at least sections of a population susceptible to such things.
Like, you know - for a long time it was communists, or crack, or militant Islam 'terrorists'
The media - and your more reactionary politicians
love this shit.
Anything that creates public apprehension - widespread fear - can be used to control and manipulate people.
Whether it is sucking people into buying more tabloid newspapers (to get updates on the latest scourge/threat/etc) electing "tough on [folk devil]" be it a group of people, an activity, a drug, etc etc - or scaring people into supporting/accepting laws that they would otherwise question or feel violated by (ie sept 11 = patriot act).
Anyway, the idea of "krokodil" being present in the USA is not realistic for a number of reasons.
1. Russia has a lot of heroin/opiate addicts (a lot of Afghanistan's heroin flows easily into Russia
2. Maintenance programs (methadone buprenorphine etc) is
illegal in Russia. Addicts - especially those in very poor regions (Russia is a huge country with many economically depressed regions)
3. "Krokodil" is merely a crude, unrefined attempt to make desomorphine out of over-the-counter codeine pills. The horrible effects on users are not from the drug itself, but from the toxic ingredients used in the synthesis (knowledge of which is passed - much like pre-Internet clandestine amphetamine synth recipes). The final product is not cleaned of the corrosive solvents - many of which seem (if memory serves me correctly) to be similar to certain meth recipes. It is almost like an uneducated guess at making stronger dope out of codeine. Why wouldn't this happen in the states?
4. Americans on the whole have better access to information (namely the Internet) and methods for cleaning the final product, precipitating out the desomorphine from the toxic brew would be far more likely to happen (thanks in part to sites like bluelight that enable people to share HR tips on doing an acetone wash or recrystallisation of street drugs, for example. People living in desperate poverty in Russia may not have Internet access - and with the prevailing govt attitudes towards drug users there, Russian language HR info is scarce to non existent as far as I know.
5. Codeine cannot be purchased over the counter in the USA. Why bother with kitchen chemistry when there is a large market (legit Rx and black market for a whole range of opiates/opioids) and some of the cheapest heroin in the Western developed world.
No, I don't think this "drug" is in the USA. I highly doubt it.
I certainly wasn't saying that Russians are importing it - it is made in small batches that are consumed more or less straight away.'
It is not made commercially - it is a really poorly made kitchen synthesis of desomorphine (which in its pure, untainted form is a legitimate opiate; a stronger version of morphine (like heroin is).
But desomorphine is
not Krokodil; it's like calling pharmaceutical grade Methedrine "shake and bake meth". Same active drug - but the home-made version also has impurities (which is what causes Krokodil to cause such harm.
In mentioning
the Russians and so on i was being facetious, listing all of the
classic media scare elements to the story: hard drugs, Russians (remember the Cold War?) and the similarity with notorious small scale meth manufacture techniques.
For many reasons - as I listed above - the United States is not conducive to having a problem with this drug.
The only reason people are aware of it is because it got a lot of media attention.
But US opiate users have access to much better drugs than these impoverished Russians - and the main source of the opiates in Krokodil - OTC codeine - not available OTC in the states
Some north american home chemist
may have made synthed desomorphine at one time or another - but if they were enterprising or ambitious enough to do so, they were more than likely educated and aware of how to clean up the final product.
This isn't the case in Russia (and places in Eastern Europe where Krokodil has been reported) - the instructions for making the stuff are crude and passed by word of mouth and users teaching one another.
There is no need to panic - I was being
sarcastic.
What I was getting at is that the media/politicins/LE boneheads plant the seeds in people's mind that - like crack or other drug epidemics - "it will come here".
Highly; highly unlikely.
It is a media hype plain and simple; a gruesome story at best (that reinforces the drug war message "drugs will fuck you up so much you won't care") and scaremongering at worst - with reports of it being found I'm certain places.
It is a drug users make
for themselves - not a commercial, large scale drug.
Rest easy, this folk devil is storm in a...teaspoon.
Beware though - the media
want you to be scared. Seems like Krokodil is the least of US heroin users' worries at the moment with all the fentanyl (or analogue thereof) cut dope doing the rounds.
Stay safe - but
don't believe the hype!
