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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,561
Loc: Utah
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Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation
#19408280 - 01/12/14 01:02 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/01/10/krokodil-crock-how-rumors-of-a-flesh-eating-zombie-drug-swept-the-nation/ January 10, 2014
Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation
By now you probably have heard that krokodil, a nasty homemade version of the narcotic painkiller desomorphine, is starting to catch on in the United States. Having eaten its way through the flesh of myriad Russian opiate addicts, the caustic concoction—notorious for the ghastly side effects caused by its corrosive contaminants, including abscesses and gangrene—is reportedly burning its way through Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. “The monster has crossed the ocean,” Time declared last month.
Like most monster stories, this tale of what CNN calls a “flesh-eating zombie drug” stalking the land does not appear to be true, as some reporters have begun to recognize. Yet others continue to hype an American krokodil craze that seems to exist only in the fevered imaginations of anti-drug propagandists and their journalistic accomplices. Just last week the Associated Press claimed doctors had confirmed that a Texas teenager’s skin lesions were caused by krokodil, and on Tuesday police in Lamar, Colorado, told reporters the drug had shown up there.
“A lot of people want to call it a trend, but we’re not seeing it,” says Joseph Moses, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). None of the people who supposedly injected krokodil have tested positive for desomorphine, and neither have any of the putative krokodil samples analyzed by the DEA. In fact, Moses says, “I’m not aware of any forensic laboratory that has come up with a desomorphine sample.” Instead he sees “a lot of hype” and “a lot of gruesome imagery”—the obligatory pictures of Russian addicts displaying gaping wounds and rotting flesh.
The reporters sounding the alarm about this alleged Russian drug invasion are undeterred by the complete lack of toxicological evidence. Nor have they stopped to wonder why there would be a market for krokodil in the United States. Russian junkies turned to krokodil, which they made by mixing codeine with chemicals such as gasoline, red phosphorus, and hydrochloric acid, because heroin was scarce and codeine was available over the counter. Since neither of those conditions applies in the United States, where heroin is readily available and codeine requires a prescription, why would krokodil appeal to American drug users? Because they were curious to see what “rotting from the inside out” was like? And if users are not knowingly injecting krokodil, why would dealers go to the trouble of surreptitiously replacing heroin with it when the real stuff is cheap and plentiful? “It’s unlikely that we would see that shift,” Moses observes, “when other substances are available.”
Major news organizations have not let the implausibility of an American krokodil outbreak get in the way of a good drug scare. Last September, when Frank LoVecchio, co-director of the Banner Good Samaritan Poison and Drug Information Center in Phoenix, said local hospitals had treated two people for “symptoms consistent with krokodil use” (as The Arizona Republic put it), USA Today immediately jumped on the story. “Flesh-Rotting ‘Krokodil’ Drug Emerges in USA,” the paper announced in an article by Michael Winter that relied entirely on LoVecchio’s speculation to substantiate that claim.
Those two Arizona cases were never confirmed by toxicological tests, and neither were any of the subsequently reported cases. “Symptoms consistent with krokodil use,” such as lesions, necrosis, and scarring, are also consistent with unsanitary injections of heroin or other drugs, which may contain contaminants that pose additional hazards. Even when intravenous drug users report that they have injected krokodil, they have no way of knowing for sure what was in the stuff they bought—a perennial pitfall of the black market.
CNN ignored these subtleties in a widely circulated October 16 story that endorsed the narrative of an American krokodil outbreak. “A flesh-eating drug that turns people into zombie-like creatures seems to have made its way to the United States,” Jen Christensen reported under the headline “Flesh-Eating ‘Zombie’ Drug ‘Kills You From the Inside Out.’” The story relied heavily on Abhin Singla, director of addiction services at the Presence St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois. Singla, who supplied the headline quotes, was convinced he had come across five patients with krokodil-related symptoms. So were some local news outlets.
By contrast, Chicago Tribune reporter Andy Grimm was appropriately skeptical from the beginning, and on October 27 he published a story debunking Singla’s claims under the headline “Suspected Krokodil a False Alarm: Negative Tests Lead to More Doubt That Drug Is in the U.S.” What about the “”festering, pungent sore” that an Ohio sheriff attributed to krokodil in November? Last month Henry Spiller, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center, deemed the report spurious, telling The Columbus Dispatch “there is no krokodil” in Ohio or any other state. A report of a krokodil-related death in Oklahoma likewise proved to be unfounded. “It was just a drug overdose,” a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics said, “and nothing in [his] system [was] consistent with krokodil.” That quote, in fact, appeared halfway through CNN’s breathless account of the emerging krokodil epidemic.
Although such clues did not faze CNN, they gave rise to a December 10 story on WAVE, the NBC affiliate in Louisville, headlined “Krokodil in Kentuckiana: Urban Threat or Urban Legend?” The segment leaned decidedly toward the latter explanation, concluding that “aspects of krokodil’s United States invasion appear to be a myth—one that spread from the Internet to network television.” WAVE reporter Eric Flack’s skepticism was especially striking given the way drug scares are usually treated on the local news.
Flack noted that a report by two St. Louis doctors who claimed to have treated a man with krokodil-related symptoms, published online by The American Journal of Medicine in November, was removed from the journal’s website a week later after the paper received strong scientific criticism. The journal’s editor said the article, which according to its authors was the first such case involving an American patient to be published by a medical journal, had been removed because of privacy concerns. But he conceded that “not all MDs agree that this is a proven case of krokodil syndrome.” One reason for that disagreement: As with all the other krokodil sightings in the U.S., there was no toxicological confirmation.
The pattern here is familiar from other drug scares, such as the 2012 story about the guy who supposedly was driven to eat a man’s face by “bath salts” he did not take. Reckless claims by doctors and cops are picked up by the press, which encourages new reckless claims, which leads to more sensational coverage, and so on. No matter how many times they are debunked, the stories persist because they appeal to the same impulses that send people to horror movies or make them slow down to gawk when they pass a car crash. People are fascinated by gruesome imagery, and they want to believe in monsters.
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Kinetic
Hyperdimensional Machine Elf



Registered: 06/20/07
Posts: 247
Last seen: 9 years, 7 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: nooneman] 1
#19408470 - 01/12/14 01:55 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Natural Selection at it's best.
Synthesis for a new "Drug" Blue Angels
1. Banana skins 2. Red Ant essence 3. Gasoline 4. Anodized Aluminum 5. polyurethane paint (Blue) 6. Fire 7. Mix well
-------------------- "If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on." - T. McKenna
Edited by Kinetic (01/12/14 04:22 PM)
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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,561
Loc: Utah
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Kinetic]
#19408506 - 01/12/14 02:04 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Did you even read the article?
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Kinetic
Hyperdimensional Machine Elf



Registered: 06/20/07
Posts: 247
Last seen: 9 years, 7 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: nooneman]
#19408557 - 01/12/14 02:15 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Yes i was merely extending on the article with satire.
-------------------- "If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on." - T. McKenna
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niteman

Registered: 06/29/11
Posts: 1,050
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Kinetic]
#19408756 - 01/12/14 03:08 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kinetic said: Natural Selection at it's best.
Synthesis for a new "Drug" Blue Angels
1. Banana skins 2. Red Ant essence 3. Gasoline 4. Anodized Aluminum 5. polyurethane paint (Blue) 6. Fire 7. Mix well
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Jot



Registered: 10/25/13
Posts: 1,194
Loc: East of the Cascades, Wa
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: niteman]
#19408891 - 01/12/14 03:43 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Ooh get me summa dat
-------------------- The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits
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morrowasted
Worldwide Stepper



Registered: 10/30/09
Posts: 31,377
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Jot]
#19409697 - 01/12/14 07:04 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
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MacMerdin
Hunter



Registered: 04/26/12
Posts: 2,005
Loc: The Island of Misfit Toys
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: morrowasted]
#19410274 - 01/12/14 09:28 PM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
They are using something here.
I have personal knowledge of someone who died in similar circumstances as how they die from krokodil.
He was my neighbor when I was growing up. My parents still live in Pennsylvania and he died about 2 months ago. With his flesh rotting off of him and everything. My mother said it was a horrible death.
Believe what you will but there IS something out there that kills you......and in a pretty nasty way too. And it IS being used by people in the US.
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volcomstoner
I'll have just one more xanax



Registered: 07/20/09
Posts: 11,231
Loc: Minnesnowta
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: morrowasted]
#19411110 - 01/13/14 03:26 AM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
yeah man, I've been getting in tons of arguments about that It's so unlikely for krokodil to show up in the US And the people that claim its a drug that eats your flesh
--------------------
HAIL SATAN Vas donc jouer dans le traffic
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MacMerdin
Hunter



Registered: 04/26/12
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: volcomstoner]
#19411120 - 01/13/14 03:35 AM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
volcomstoner said:
Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
yeah man, I've been getting in tons of arguments about that It's so unlikely for krokodil to show up in the US And the people that claim its a drug that eats your flesh 
Maybe it's cases of MRSA from dirty needles?
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Rauhfasertapete
The Final Cauliflower of Doom!



Registered: 02/22/13
Posts: 214
Loc: Upper Franconia
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: MacMerdin]
#19411139 - 01/13/14 03:48 AM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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the first time i heard about krokodil was when somebody told me stories about a drug that is sad to be so good that people take it even though they know that their flesh will rot apart. that guy who told me that didn´t even know that it was a heroin substitute. insane drug craze stories with real life zombies that are falling apart just have an enormous appeal on people. they are not so much interested in what´s behind it, they just like the gory part.
however i live in germany, and during the last year there were several reports about krokodil use in cologne and berlin. all of them turned out to be false alarm. There are lots of people, media consumers and journalists, who just enjoy reading about such horror scenarios, and telling other people about hiedous things becoming reality now in our nice cuntry.
-------------------- Ich will Eins werden mit dem Gewürm auf dem Felde! if mutual gift exchange is desired, follow this link
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AllGreyThumbs
Storage Container Aficionado


Registered: 09/18/12
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Rauhfasertapete]
#19411236 - 01/13/14 04:45 AM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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No way man, between krocodile and kratom I'm afraid to even let my kids go to school...
Fucking media, they don't even give a shit if anything is true anymore, as long as it makes for a good scare story. While I'm sure few people care that krocodile is being bashed, it is representative of a complete lack of integrity on the part of journalist. And it's not just kratom, there are all those DMT and mushroom labs getting busted with their dangerous and unidetified chemical precursors, all the acid overdoses... Again it doesn't have to make sense, just has to be dramatic. In fact it's only recently that the marijuana has suddenly turned into a media darling, now journalists love it. Except that nobody woke up and decided to tell the truth. No, it just because now people read those kind of articles so that's what they write. Assholes that tell stories and assholes that believe whatever they are told, all jacking off to the drama of some big and scary, but completely made up monsters. "Oh, the drama, I need more drama..."
-------------------- I only use drugs medicinally. If I don't my knees hurt from kneeling down.
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egodeathflux
Guttersnipe



Registered: 02/02/10
Posts: 3,854
Loc: The Stygian Pits
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: MacMerdin]
#19411661 - 01/13/14 09:00 AM (10 years, 18 days ago) |
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Quote:
MacMerdin said:
Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
They are using something here.
I have personal knowledge of someone who died in similar circumstances as how they die from krokodil.
He was my neighbor when I was growing up. My parents still live in Pennsylvania and he died about 2 months ago. With his flesh rotting off of him and everything. My mother said it was a horrible death.
Believe what you will but there IS something out there that kills you......and in a pretty nasty way too. And it IS being used by people in the US.
Where is the proof that he "took" something to cause the symptoms? There are all kinds of necrotic conditions that have nothing at all to do with drug use.
More likely to have been an infected insect bite, splinter or other wound that turned nasty and poisoned his blood.
-------------------- "Atrophic interludes weave through my life far too often, for me to fight the biggest enemies" "Standing on the corner of 5th and Vermouth"
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MacMerdin
Hunter



Registered: 04/26/12
Posts: 2,005
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Last seen: 3 months, 17 days
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: egodeathflux]
#19412708 - 01/13/14 02:36 PM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
egodeathflux said:
Quote:
MacMerdin said:
Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
They are using something here.
I have personal knowledge of someone who died in similar circumstances as how they die from krokodil.
He was my neighbor when I was growing up. My parents still live in Pennsylvania and he died about 2 months ago. With his flesh rotting off of him and everything. My mother said it was a horrible death.
Believe what you will but there IS something out there that kills you......and in a pretty nasty way too. And it IS being used by people in the US.
Where is the proof that he "took" something to cause the symptoms? There are all kinds of necrotic conditions that have nothing at all to do with drug use.
More likely to have been an infected insect bite, splinter or other wound that turned nasty and poisoned his blood.
1. Before he died, he had two quadruple bypass surgeries due to heroin use.
2. He told people he injected "bath salts". Which I could see giving him the same afflictions as krokadil since who knows what the hell was in it.
3. At no point did anyone in my home town nor the media call it krokadil. Just that he died a similar death.
Like I said: Believe what you will but I do know a person personally from the USA who died a similar death to krokadil. Was it krokadil? Who knows. But.....does it even matter?
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Rauhfasertapete
The Final Cauliflower of Doom!



Registered: 02/22/13
Posts: 214
Loc: Upper Franconia
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: MacMerdin]
#19413033 - 01/13/14 03:54 PM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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yep, in that case it does matter.
-------------------- Ich will Eins werden mit dem Gewürm auf dem Felde! if mutual gift exchange is desired, follow this link
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fapjack
Title



Registered: 07/26/07
Posts: 16,574
Loc: Central New Jersey
Last seen: 3 years, 10 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: MacMerdin]
#19413591 - 01/13/14 06:03 PM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
MacMerdin said:
Quote:
morrowasted said: yeah when I was in rehab like 18 months the bitch counselor who ended up kicking me out tried to say that there were cases of Krokodil showing up in the USA and I immediately called bullshit for exactly the same reasons cited in the article. just doesnt make sense for people to use it here
They are using something here.
I have personal knowledge of someone who died in similar circumstances as how they die from krokodil.
He was my neighbor when I was growing up. My parents still live in Pennsylvania and he died about 2 months ago. With his flesh rotting off of him and everything. My mother said it was a horrible death.
Believe what you will but there IS something out there that kills you......and in a pretty nasty way too. And it IS being used by people in the US.
What the fuck are you talking about?
--------------------
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MacMerdin
Hunter



Registered: 04/26/12
Posts: 2,005
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: fapjack]
#19414422 - 01/13/14 08:53 PM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Like I said....believe what you will.
The jackass did something fucked up to die the way he did though.
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Insidious
Stranger


Registered: 11/14/13
Posts: 43
Loc: Ontario
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Kinetic]
#19416038 - 01/14/14 06:18 AM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kinetic said: Natural Selection at it's best.
Synthesis for a new "Drug" Blue Angels
1. Banana skins 2. Red Ant essence 3. Gasoline 4. Anodized Aluminum 5. polyurethane paint (Blue) 6. Fire 7. Mix well
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Rauhfasertapete
The Final Cauliflower of Doom!



Registered: 02/22/13
Posts: 214
Loc: Upper Franconia
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: Kinetic]
#19416064 - 01/14/14 06:27 AM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kinetic said: Natural Selection at it's best.
Synthesis for a new "Drug" Blue Angels
1. Banana skins 2. Red Ant essence 3. Gasoline 4. Anodized Aluminum 5. polyurethane paint (Blue) 6. Fire 7. Mix well
Where can I buy this as a kit? Please give me a vendor´s link.
-------------------- Ich will Eins werden mit dem Gewürm auf dem Felde! if mutual gift exchange is desired, follow this link
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Pureless
Crushed it


Registered: 07/16/12
Posts: 1,979
Loc: Blueridge
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
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Re: Krokodil Crock: How Rumors Of A 'Flesh-Eating Zombie Drug' Swept The Nation [Re: MacMerdin]
#19416120 - 01/14/14 06:48 AM (10 years, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
MacMerdin said: Like I said....believe what you will.
The jackass did something fucked up to die the way he did though.
He was probably just a dirty person with no hygiene on heroine.
Krokodil seems unlikely to occur in the states for a few reasons, main one being codeine isn't OTC like it is in the motherland
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