Well, that and the fact that home cooks may use combination OTC products with other ingredients besides codeine, and that most home cooks do sloppy, poorly-controlled stovetop synthesis with no purification or quality control that produces a product that often includes leftover unconverted codeine, other unintentionally-produced synthetic opiates, and an assortment of irritant and caustic by-products as impurities
Also, product offered by dealers is often debased with other chemicals including anticholinergics like tropicamide (found in OTC eyedrops), in hopes of ehancing and prolonging the high.
The drug itself is not wildly different from many other synthetic opiates, in terms of its dangers and side-effects. Itās the easy availability of inexpensive precursor ingredients, and the simplicity and speed of crude stovetop synthesis that makes it simultaneously very appealing to users, and very dangerous to them.
Aye, you can get codeine linctus in bottles here. Iāve been prescribed the doctor-only version (MUCH stronger) for a really bad chest infection, and the chemist rang the doctor to check, as heād given me a litre of it. I was fainting every time I coughed it was that bad, however.
This is already being seen in England, we have had 6 cases in Sussex already in the last 6 months. Its actually spread from Russia down into Europe then England and now America.
I was under the impression that Russia had banned OTC codeine sales, but that a lot of pharmacies continue to sell it without prescriptions.
I sometimes practice my very rusty Russian by reading the news. (Especially from Vladivostock. That is one of the most oddball places on earth. Iām kind of convinced it is the Russian Night Vale.) The first time I read about krokodil was a couple years ago. I donāt get the sense that this is some ādrug war hysteriaā to prompt eye rolling. Itās people already in terrible situations sinking further, unable to afford their usual fix and turning to half assed cheap alternatives to stave off the misery of being physically addicted to shit like heroin.
Iām not saying itās not real, Iām saying itās not a real issue, just like people using ābath saltsā and chewing peopleās faces off somehow never turned into the next big drug craze. As to the rationality of drug addicts, Boing Boing is here to enlighten you!
You must not live near the twin tiers (southern NY northern PA). Most everything from Binghampton to Lake Erie is a meth riddled wasteland, and I say that as a resident.
In places where over the counter codeine is sold, the existence of krokodil will be used to justify restricting it to prescription-only.
In places where over the counter codeine is not sold (like the US), the existence of krokodil will be used as an argument against selling it over the counter.
Except you donāt have to make the product more dangerous purely as a consequence of its production. You can make it more dangerous simply by making it only available from criminals.
You are correct. Iām in Boston. We have a heroin problem, since we have a port, and itās still possible to smuggle things by it. But not much meth. Which means no meth fires. And so far, no krokodil.
Then, Codeine will be restricted and we need to know how to synthesise Codeine from the more readily available starting material of Krokodil, using a one-pot synthesis
