Homemade heroin has left patients with a skin condition that causes their flesh to literally rot off the bones.
The drug is called "krokodil," it's made by mixing codeine with gasoline, filtering it, and then injecting it into one's veins. It can also contain paint thinner, cough syrup, and alcohol, Time reported.
Banner's Poison Control Center in Arizona encountered what is believed to be the first two cases of the condition in the U.S. The drug has been popular in Russia for over a decade. Krokodil is generally used because it is about 20 times cheaper than heroin.
"As far as I know, these are the first cases in the United States that are reported," Dr. Frank LoVechhio, co-medical director at Banner Good Samaritan Poison and Drug Information Center in Arizona, told CBS 5. "So we're extremely frightened.
LoVechhio said doing the drug was equivalent to injecting "fuel" into the body.
"They extract [the drug] and even though they believe that most of the oil and gasoline is gone, there is still remnants of it. You can imagine just injecting a little bit of it into your veins can cause a lot of damage," he said.
Krokodil eats away at skin from the inside, and can even give it a crocodilian appearance, as the name suggests.
"When [drug users] do it repeatedly, the skin sloughs. It causes hardening of their skin. It will cause necrosis," LoVecchio said.
The two cases of drug use are believed to be connected to each other.
"Where there is smoke there is fire, and we're afraid there are going to be more and more cases," LoVechhio said, the Daily Mail reported.
A Time Investigation found krokadil users had a life span of only about three years once they started using, even those that recover are almost always left permanently disfigured. Krokodil, which is technically called desomorphine, can also cause problems with motor skills and speech impediments.
"She'll try to walk forward and instead jolts back into something. So we try to be gentle with her," Andrei Yatsenko, house manager at a drug rehab center in Russia's Chichevo, told Time, referring to a recovering krokodil addict.
The drug causes blood vessels to rupture around the injection site, resulting in tissue death. This causes the skin to harden, rot, and sometimes fall off the bone, Time reported.
"These people are the ultimate in self-destructive drug addiction," Dr. Ellen Marmur, chief of dermatological and cosmetic surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City told Fox News via Time. "Once you are an addict at this level, any rational thinking doesn't apply."
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