{"id":102933,"date":"2014-01-03T16:23:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T16:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/how-the-drug-war-makes-drugs-less-safe\/"},"modified":"2014-01-03T17:55:09","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T17:55:09","slug":"how-the-drug-war-makes-drugs-less-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/how-the-drug-war-makes-drugs-less-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Drug War Makes Drugs Less Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- START CONTENT --><\/p>\n<p><strong>Benjamin M. Wiegold<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Desomorphine\" target=\"_blank\">Desomorphine<\/a>, a grotesque new drug known on the street as krokodil, has been making <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2013\/10\/16\/health\/krokodil-zombie-drug\/\" target=\"_blank\">news<\/a> for its increasing popularity as a cheap substitute for heroin, albeit with a devastating range of ill effects of its own. <a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/usa\/desomorphine-drug-arizona-flesh-decay-426\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reports<\/a> allege that it originated in Siberia in 2002 and has become common in Russia and other Eastern European countries.<\/p>\n<p>The name itself seems to corroborate this, krokodil is Russian for crocodile, and refers to the reptilian-like scales caused by the severe tissue damage from repeated use of this killer drug. For an addict, the life expectancy is less than two years.<\/p>\n<p>Some sources <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/crime\/2013\/12\/09\/krokodil_this_supposed_new_drug_epidemic_now_seems_faker_than_ever.html\" target=\"_blank\">dispute<\/a> the prevalence of its use, arguing that the drug is not nearly as common as suggested. Special agent Jack Riley, the man in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration&#8217;s (DEA) Chicago office, said that \u201c200 DEA agents in five states have made finding krokodil a top priority,\u201d but that for everything discovered so far, \u201cthe lab tells us it&#8217;s just heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/daily\/6627\/How-the-Drug-War-Makes-Drugs-Less-Safe\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Benjamin M. Wiegold Desomorphine, a grotesque new drug known on the street as krokodil, has been making news for its increasing popularity as a cheap substitute for heroin, albeit with a devastating range of ill effects of its own. Reports allege that it originated in Siberia in 2002 and has become common in Russia and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-102933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}