Mexican Officials Report Flesh-Eating Drug In City Near Arizona Border
Krokodil contains impurities that damage the user's circulatory system, leaving scaly green scabs and causing flesh to rot off the bone. / Huffington Post
Mexican public health officials in the northern state of Sonora have confirmed the first case of krokodil in the city of Nogales, which borders Arizona, the Huffington Post reported Monday.
Krokodil, which was first used in Russia, is made by cooking crushed codeine pills with household chemicals like paint thinner.
The homemade drug contains impurities that damage the user's circulatory system, leaving scaly green scabs and causing flesh to rot off the bone.
Leticia Amparano Gamez, the state's director of mental health of Mexico, said that the patient in question also used crystal meth, cocaine and heroin, according to Mexican news website Aristegui Noticias.
In an interview with Proceso last December, Jacobo Fox Inzunza, director of the Center for Youth Integration in Sonora, said that border cities like Nogales were at "highest risk" for krokodil because the high incidence of intravenous drug use there.
In November, a 17-year-old was treated in Puerto Vallarta after she claimed to have injected krokodil into her genitals.
In January, Mexican health officials said that the girl was a Houston, Texas, resident who had sought medical attention while visiting relatives in Mexico.
Although numerous cases of krokodil use in the United States have been reported since September 2013, apart from two cases in 2004, the Drug Enforcement Administration has yet to confirm the presence of desomorphine in the United States. .