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Custom drugs are all rage in Russia. Chinese plants make synthetic cannabioids with varying formulas which then happen to be not made illegal yet. Those are mo

Custom drugs are all rage in Russia. Chinese plants make synthetic cannabioids with varying formulas which then happen to be not made illegal yet. Those are moved into country, mixed with all kinds of chemical shit and sold as "курительные смеси" - mixes for smoking. This fall dozens of people died from these nasty chemicals, usually in packs in one city or another. There was a law passed which makes all that stuff illegal but I'm not sure if it will pan out. Why they proliferated so badly? I guess because the local market of [relatively] light drugs is underserved in general. For example, I happen to not have ever come in contact with weed and don't know a single person who can get some. But pretty sure there are a lot of advertisements like "курительные смеси 8 9XX XXX XX XX" mask-painted on pavements all around the city.

NicoJuicy 12y ago
I actually read about a terrifying drug made by cheap materials in Russia (easy to self create) named Crocodile... Skin gets eaten and it's very horrifying to see long term users, carefull not for the weak of heart :s http://goo.gl/wiAXNx http://goo.gl/wiAXNx
- deleted 12y ago
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- poizan42 12y ago
  That's just impure desomorphine though
  - refurb 12y ago
    Exactly. Desomorphine itself doesn't cause your flesh to rot off, it's the impurities in it. I think they commonly use an iodine/phosphorus reduction to remove the hydroxyl group. It doesn't surprise me that injecting a drug that has left over phosphorus triiodide or other phosphorus/iodine compounds would destroy your tissue.
  - girvo 12y ago
    I truly don't understand how desomorphine can be created through the RP/I route. It makes pretty much zero sense based on my chemistry knowledge (BSci in Chemistry, but didn't complete it, dropped out third year). I've no idea what they're actually injecting, but I do know that a lot of the photos a number of years ago that were tagged as "Krokodil" were in fact a different drug entirely
    - refurb 12y ago
      RP/I2 is basically a source of hydrogen iodide (HI). If you look at desomorphine, it's just a morphine molecule without the bottom hydroxyl group and the double bond reduced. HI will reductively deoxygenate benzyl alcohols. The oxygen removed in morphine is an allyic alcohol which is in conjugation with the aromatic ring, so it has "benzyl alcohol-like properties". HI will also reduce the double bond. As for the reaction mechanism, I'm not sure anyone has completely figured it out. One could suggest protonation of the hydroxyl group, elimination of water to form the carbocation, addition of the iodide ion(-). Another iodide ion then attacks the iodine on the molecule, which creates I2 and leaves a benzylic anion which is protonated by HI. Here is a good mechanism diagram [1]. [1]http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjoc/content/inline/1860-5397-8-36-i1.png?scale=2.0&max-width=1024&background=FFFFFF http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjoc/content/inline/1860-5...
      - girvo 12y ago
        I had something much larger typed up, but I'll be honest, it's been a number of years since I studied and my chemistry is a bit rusty. From what I seem to remember, I would've thought the apomorphine rearrangement would be more likely to prevail in the conditions given from a RP/I2 reaction, but I'm possibly completely off-base now (see above: rusty!). I'd be super curious to see whether anyone has properly analysed what comes out of that reaction, and what those addicts are putting into their veins (aside from horrendous toxic byproducts). The reaction method makes some sense, but reactions with opiates are typically finicky, so I've always been skeptical of these reports. I'd expect desomorphine to be present, yes, but in trace amounts at best (along with morphine and other byproducts)!
- deleted 12y ago
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- ChrisGranger 12y ago
  There's a VICE documentary about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo Horrifying, and doubly so that people are doing this to themselves voluntarily...

NicoJuicy 12y ago

I actually read about a terrifying drug made by cheap materials in Russia (easy to self create) named Crocodile... Skin gets eaten and it's very horrifying to see long term users, carefull not for the weak of heart :s http://goo.gl/wiAXNx http://goo.gl/wiAXNx

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
poizan42 12y ago
That's just impure desomorphine though
- refurb 12y ago
  Exactly. Desomorphine itself doesn't cause your flesh to rot off, it's the impurities in it. I think they commonly use an iodine/phosphorus reduction to remove the hydroxyl group. It doesn't surprise me that injecting a drug that has left over phosphorus triiodide or other phosphorus/iodine compounds would destroy your tissue.
- girvo 12y ago
  I truly don't understand how desomorphine can be created through the RP/I route. It makes pretty much zero sense based on my chemistry knowledge (BSci in Chemistry, but didn't complete it, dropped out third year). I've no idea what they're actually injecting, but I do know that a lot of the photos a number of years ago that were tagged as "Krokodil" were in fact a different drug entirely
  - refurb 12y ago
    RP/I2 is basically a source of hydrogen iodide (HI). If you look at desomorphine, it's just a morphine molecule without the bottom hydroxyl group and the double bond reduced. HI will reductively deoxygenate benzyl alcohols. The oxygen removed in morphine is an allyic alcohol which is in conjugation with the aromatic ring, so it has "benzyl alcohol-like properties". HI will also reduce the double bond. As for the reaction mechanism, I'm not sure anyone has completely figured it out. One could suggest protonation of the hydroxyl group, elimination of water to form the carbocation, addition of the iodide ion(-). Another iodide ion then attacks the iodine on the molecule, which creates I2 and leaves a benzylic anion which is protonated by HI. Here is a good mechanism diagram [1]. [1]http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjoc/content/inline/1860-5397-8-36-i1.png?scale=2.0&max-width=1024&background=FFFFFF http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjoc/content/inline/1860-5...
    - girvo 12y ago
      I had something much larger typed up, but I'll be honest, it's been a number of years since I studied and my chemistry is a bit rusty. From what I seem to remember, I would've thought the apomorphine rearrangement would be more likely to prevail in the conditions given from a RP/I2 reaction, but I'm possibly completely off-base now (see above: rusty!). I'd be super curious to see whether anyone has properly analysed what comes out of that reaction, and what those addicts are putting into their veins (aside from horrendous toxic byproducts). The reaction method makes some sense, but reactions with opiates are typically finicky, so I've always been skeptical of these reports. I'd expect desomorphine to be present, yes, but in trace amounts at best (along with morphine and other byproducts)!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ChrisGranger 12y ago
There's a VICE documentary about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo Horrifying, and doubly so that people are doing this to themselves voluntarily...