What Happens To Your Body When You Do Krokodil, The “Zombie Drug”

What Happens To Your Body When You Do Krokodil, The “Zombie Drug”

Krokodil is administered much like heroin, but it has to be prepared before cooking. Street chemists usually start with codeine, and typical additives include, but are by no means limited to, gasoline, rubbing alcohol, red phosphorous from match heads, and iodine. Even worse, Russian addicts have discovered that the drug's effects are much more intense if it's cooked in eyewash solution, rather than distilled water. As you may have guessed, eye drops are not intended for internal consumption, and the solution wreaks havoc on almost every organ in the body.

It certainly doesn't help that the conditions for cooking are usually less hygienic than the bathroom at a dirty bookstore.

Extended IV drug use tends to damage veins close to the surface. This is a common problem for anyone who regularly injects, but krokodil's unique cocktail of horrible garbage and industrial solvents crushes veins after just a few shots. This forces addicts to find new spots every few days or weeks.

Here, Oxana, 33 , is injecting Krokodil in Yekaterinburg, Russia.