(3/4/13)

Nurse Elise Delisle says she's never seen anything like it. Over the last two months, dozens of teenagers have piled into Montreal's Hebrew Center for Health & Wellness with symptoms similar to those of leprosy. "It's the result of a new drug from russia called krokodil. It's the poor man's heroin," says Elise. "You can make it at home, and ever since ravers figured that out, Montreal's been flooded with the stuff. It causes your skin to fall off."

Krokodil's proper name is dihydrodesoxymorphine, or disomorphine, a derivative of morphine that was invented over eighty years ago. "All you need to make krokodil is codeine, iodine, red phosphorus and a complete disregard for living past 30," says Elise. "Krokodil addicts develop scaly skin, eventually your skin starts rotting. Serious addicts can barely move. It is a devastating drug, and now Montreal party goers are taking it en masse."

The drug owes its current popularity to Russia's party scene. "I first injected krokodil when I was visting family in Moscow," says Ziv Alexandrovich. "It was such an amazing high, I brought some with me back to Montreal and shared it with all my friends. Soon, everyone I knew was taking it."

Ziv wasn't Montreal's only early krokodil evangelist. Lisa Earnhart, a 23 year old zoology student at McGill university, was another early convert. She first read about the drug on a popular internet forum devoted to self-loathing. "I hate myself," says Lisa, "and I'm always looking for new ways to ruin my life. I was posting on a thread about self-mutilation when one of the other posters suggested getting high on krokodil. The next day, I cooked some up, and wow, it was the best decision I've ever made. Within a month, most of my hair had fallen out, my skin was rotting, and I looked like an extra from the Walking Dead. It's a lot easier to hate yourself when you look like a monster."

Dr. Leonardo Témiscaming says krokodil is a serious threat to public health. "Parents need to keep an eye on their children. This drug is no laughing matter. Thankfully, krokodil users are easy to spot -- or smell, as it were. All krokodil users smell of iodine. Their clothing is drenched in the scent of the stuff, and you can't wash that smell out. Unless you burn your clothing, which krokodil users aren't likely to do, because they look hideous naked."

Public health officials are busily working out plans to combat the scourge before it claims more lives. "It's an uphill battle," says Dr. Témiscaming. "So long as parents keep raising idiots, those idiots will keep getting high on drugs that'll give them leprosy." Elise Delisle agrees. "Parents really have to stop raising their kids to be absolute idiots. If you're child takes krokodil, you've failed as a parent."

http://www.ravenews.ca/en/read/2013/march/04/