More Questions And Answers About Krokodil

Why do people use krokodil?

Krokodil makes people feel happy, and it makes them feel happy very fast. No matter what is going on around you, or whether your skin is turning a leathery green and peeling off, for about an hour and a half you feel that everything is right with the world. 

The effect lasts about 90 minutes. Then you have about 30 minutes to cook up another batch and shoot it into a vein before you experience an awful crash. Your bowels will move. Your sense of pain will be heightened. You may want to throw up. These symptoms may not be as intense as they are when coming off heroin, although they come around a lot faster. But you can avoid this if you take another shot of the drug.

Is the drug really that bad?

It's not just the psychoactive part of the drug that is the extreme problem with krokodil. It's the impurities. In addition to potentially blowing up on the stove or on the shelf, they can also blow up inside veins. Injecting the drug ruins veins fast, the drug is addictive, and people run out of places to inject it.

If the drug is that bad, why do people use it?

The attraction of krokodil is that it gives a high like heroin without the heroin, which isn't available everywhere. The ingredients for making it are not hard to find and don't cost a lot of money. The process for making a version of the drug that will get you high -- and kill you -- isn't very complicated. If you can read, you can make krokodil. The ingredients are somewhat less explosive than those used to cook meth, although they are more likely to catch on fire.

It's just the processing chemicals that are the problem, then?

Putting red phosphorus into your veins isn't a good plan. However, the process of cooking krokodil on the stove introduces other impurities into the mix, including some byproducts of codeine that have unpredictable effects. Also, the cough medicines used to get the codeine can contain compounds like Diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl. This changes the "high" to just getting sleepy and then feeling a crash but not having energy to make more of the drug. Even worse, the over the counter medication used to get the codeine also often contains caffeine, so the user feels agitated, nervous, jumpy, sleepy, nauseous, and sad all at the same time when the drug wears off.

Is this drug illegal in the USA and Canada?

Absolutely. Did you have to ask?

If someone I know is using krokodil, what can I do?

Get them into treatment fast. It is possible to beat the addiction, but it won't be easy.