New "Designer" Drug...

[SubGod22]

Leave it to the Russians to come up with, "Krokodil"

To produce the potentially deadly drug, which has a comparable effect to heroin but is much cheaper to make, users mix codeine with gasoline, paint thinner, iodine, hydrochloric acid and red phosphorous. Codeine, a controlled substance in the United States used to treat mild to moderate pain, is widely available over the counter in Russia.

In 2010, up to a million people, according to various estimates, were injecting the resulting substance into their veins in Russia, thus far the only country worldwide to see it grow into an epidemic, Time reports.

The drug's sinister nickname -- also known as crocodile -- refers to the greenish and scaly appearance of a user's skin at the site of injection as blood vessels rupture and cause surrounding tissues to die. According to reports, the drug first appeared in Siberia and parts of Russia around 2002, but has spread throughout the country in recent years.

What would posses someone to actually put this into their system? I can understand on some level why people use certain drugs, but this one is beyond me...

[SB Shock]

Well the side effects should make it easy to identify the users.

[ShockTalk]

Well the side effects should make it easy to identify the users.

No doubt!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G1T65bf0qw&feature=related

[WINGdingBALLfling]

maybe its a real turn on for girls in Russia...

[small tyme baller]

I'll take an L or Splif anyday over that junk. Crystal Meth called; they want their negative affects back.

[Aargh]

Re: New "Designer" Drug...

What would posses someone to actually put this into their system? I can understand on some level why people use certain drugs, but this one is beyond me...

In the early '70's I had some candid conversations with one of the higher-ranking vice officers in the WPD. He said that Wichita would never have a heroin problem, because nobody in Wichita would stick needles into their arms.

At the time that attitude was prevalent in law enforcement, there was a huge bust of marijuana dealers and 51 of them were taken off of Wichita's streets. You might think this is the happy ending, but it's not.

Heroin use in Wichita went from nearly non-existent to nearly endemic. Street-level dealers had no access to marijuana. Heroin distributors moved into the void and made heroin readily available. People who were making their living off of distributing marijuana switched to heroin, because it was the only available option.

Wichita ended up with a significant heroin problem.

That led to a Turn In A Pusher program. Those of us over 50 or so probably remember the TV ads and the phone number that ended in -TIPS. Everyone was urged to contact a private group if they ran into a drug dealer. The implication from the ads was that that group would handle everything with law enforcement and the person making the accusation wouldn't have to be identified.

Then there was the time that an investigator from the private group and a Sheriff's officer tried to arrest each other in what each side thought was a sting.

The word on the street was that the guy behind the "Turn In a Pusher" program was the biggest heroin dealer n Wichita and that he was using his contacts with law enforcement and his TV ads to eliminate the competition.

None of those rumors were ever substantiated, but after the gun-pointing standoff between the private guy and the sheriff's officer, the ads stopped and H usage in Wichita decreased.

I'm not a big fan of the War on Drugs. There's a Homeboy program in LA that takes addicted gang members and rehabs them into productive citizens without jail time. That is probably cheaper than incarceration and way more likely to produce a productive citizen than jail time. Jail time produces smarter criminals.

[vbird53]

I'm wondering if you'll see another spike in Heroin use in Wichita in the near future. Kansas City has experienced such a spike due to the overwhelming # of prescription narcotics that run out or are too expensive to maintain, but the high is still demanded. A patient can get any family practice doc to write an initial prescription, but are left are their own to manage the quick forming addiction. It's inevitable that some will turn to heroin.

[wufan]

I'm wondering if you'll see another spike in Heroin use in Wichita in the near future. Kansas City has experienced such a spike due to the overwhelming # of prescription narcotics that run out or are too expensive to maintain, but the high is still demanded. A patient can get any family practice doc to write an initial prescription, but are left are their own to manage the quick forming addiction. It's inevitable that some will turn to heroin.

Have to disagree with your premisses here:

1) Family practice doc's can continue to prescribe narcotics if they choose. The problem is that some patients are drug-seeking and this is not the expertise of a primary care physician. Secondly, one successful drug-seeker will tell his buddies and before long you have a line of fraudulent abusers at your door.

2) Narcotics are addictive, but almost any patient that takes as prescribed can easily avoid this issue. I'm not saying that some folks don't unintentionally become addicted, but the mere act of prescribing opiates does not leave an addict "left on their own" as a by-product.

3) Prescription drug abusers almost never turn to heroin as an alternative. Folks that start by abusing pills stick with pills. Alternatively, illicit drug users will often abuse pills as well as cocaine, meth, and lastly heroin. People generally don't like to inject.

4) Paying for prescribed opiates is CHEAP! They only cost a few cents per pill even if you are uninsured. Buying them on the second hand market is considerably more expensive, but much cheaper than heroin.

[vbird53]

I'm wondering if you'll see another spike in Heroin use in Wichita in the near future. Kansas City has experienced such a spike due to the overwhelming # of prescription narcotics that run out or are too expensive to maintain, but the high is still demanded. A patient can get any family practice doc to write an initial prescription, but are left are their own to manage the quick forming addiction. It's inevitable that some will turn to heroin.

Have to disagree with your premisses here:

1) Family practice doc's can continue to prescribe narcotics if they choose. The problem is that some patients are drug-seeking and this is not the expertise of a primary care physician. Secondly, one successful drug-seeker will tell his buddies and before long you have a line of fraudulent abusers at your door.

2) Narcotics are addictive, but almost any patient that takes as prescribed can easily avoid this issue. I'm not saying that some folks don't unintentionally become addicted, but the mere act of prescribing opiates does not leave an addict "left on their own" as a by-product.

3) Prescription drug abusers almost never turn to heroin as an alternative. Folks that start by abusing pills stick with pills. Alternatively, illicit drug users will often abuse pills as well as cocaine, meth, and lastly heroin. People generally don't like to inject.

4) Paying for prescribed opiates is CHEAP! They only cost a few cents per pill even if you are uninsured. Buying them on the second hand market is considerably more expensive, but much cheaper than heroin.

I didn't have the time when originally posting to fully develop my theory, but in discussion with multiple ABC and DEA agents, they would suggest that the reason 1 in 5 high school youth have taken narcotics not prescribed to them is ease of access. These same agents have noticed the trend of that group of abusers changing the drug of choice from pills to heroin due to the cost associated with pills off the street in the Overland Park and North Kansas City region.

[wufan]

Undrstandable as those are illicit drug abusers, not pain pill addicts as I was describing. I still haven't read any research that shows a connection between prescription narcotic abusers moving to heroin...on the other hand, recreational drug users will use about anything.

[SubGod22]

It's here!

[SubGod22]

And now Chicago

[RoyalShock]

Is it in DC yet?



(Ok, I know, I'm bad. I will now go stand in the corner for the next 10 minutes.)

[SubGod22]

All bad things from Chicago make their way to DC. Sometimes even the White House.

[wsushox1]

Read an article in the NYT last spring talking about how Heroin is now the "drug of suburbia" so that would vibe with what V-Bird was saying when talking about Overland Park.