home-made heroin substitute is having a horrific effect on thousands of Russia's drug addicts

<p>Oleg glances furtively around him and, confident that nobody is watching, slips inside the entrance to a decaying Soviet-era block of flats, where Sasha is waiting for him. Ensconced in the dingy kitchen of one of the apartments, they empty the contents of a blue carrier bag that Oleg has brought with him – painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil, and an array of vials, syringes, and cooking implements.<br /><br />Half an hour later, after much boiling, distilling, mixing and shaking, what remains is a caramel-coloured gunge held in the end of a syringe, and the acrid smell of burnt iodine in the air. Sasha fixes a dirty needle to the syringe and looks for a vein in his bruised forearm. After some time, he finds a suitable place, and hands the syringe to Oleg, telling him to inject the fluid. He closes his eyes, and takes the hit.<br /><br />Russia has more heroin users than any other country in the world – up to two million, according to unofficial estimates. For most, their lot is a life of crime, stints in prison, probable contraction of HIV and hepatitis C, and an early death. As efforts to stem the flow of Afghan heroin into Russia bring some limited success, and the street price of the drug goes up, for those addicts who can't afford their next hit, an even more terrifying spectre has raised its head.<br /><br /><br />The home-made drug that Oleg and Sasha inject is known as krokodil, or "crocodile". It is desomorphine, a synthetic opiate many times more powerful than heroin that is created from a complex chain of mixing and chemical reactions, which the addicts perform from memory several times a day. While heroin costs from £20 to £60 per dose, desomorphine can be "cooked" from codeine-based headache pills that cost £2 per pack, and other household ingredients available cheaply from the markets.<br /><br />It is a drug for the poor, and its effects are horrific. It was given its reptilian name because its poisonous ingredients quickly turn the skin scaly. Worse follows. Oleg and Sasha have not been using for long, but Oleg has rotting sores on the back of his neck.<br /><br />"If you miss the vein, that's an abscess straight away," says Sasha. Essentially, they are injecting poison directly into their flesh. One of their friends, in a neighbouring apartment block, is further down the line.<br /><br />"She won't go to hospital, she just keeps injecting. Her flesh is falling off and she can hardly move anymore," says Sasha. Photographs of late-stage krokodil addicts are disturbing in the extreme. Flesh goes grey and peels away to leave bones exposed. People literally rot to death.<br /><br />Russian heroin addicts first discovered how to make krokodil around four years ago, and there has been a steady rise in consumption, with a sudden peak in recent months. "Over the past five years, sales of codeine-based tablets have grown by dozens of times," says Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Drug Control Agency. "It's pretty obvious that it's not because everyone has suddenly developed headaches."<br /><br />Heroin addiction kills 30,000 people per year in Russia – a third of global deaths from the drug – but now there is the added problem of krokodil. Mr Ivanov recalled a recent visit to a drug-treatment centre in Western Siberia. "They told me that two years ago almost all their drug users used heroin," said the drugs tsar. "Now, more than half of them are on desomorphine."<br /><br />He estimates that overall, around 5 per cent of Russian drug users are on krokodil and other home-made drugs, which works out at about 100,000 people. It's a huge, hidden epidemic – worse in the really isolated parts of Russia where supplies of heroin are patchy – but palpable even in cities such as Tver.<br /><br />It has a population of half a million, and is a couple of hours by train from Moscow, en route to St Petersburg. Its city centre, sat on the River Volga, is lined with pretty, Tsarist-era buildings, but the suburbs are miserable. People sit on cracked wooden benches in a weed-infested "park", gulping cans of Jaguar, an alcoholic energy drink. In the background, there are rows of crumbling apartment blocks. The shops and restaurants of Moscow are a world away; for a treat, people take the bus to the McDonald's by the train station.<br /><br />In the city's main drug treatment centre, Artyom Yegorov talks of the devastation that krokodil is causing. "Desomorphine causes the strongest levels of addiction, and is the hardest to cure," says the young doctor, sitting in a treatment room in the scruffy clinic, below a picture of Hugh Laurie as Dr House.<br /><br />"With heroin withdrawal, the main symptoms last for five to 10 days. After that there is still a big danger of relapse but the physical pain will be gone. With krokodil, the pain can last up to a month, and it's unbearable. They have to be injected with extremely strong tranquilisers just to keep them from passing out from the pain."<br /><br />Dr Yegorov says krokodil users are instantly identifiable because of their smell. "It's that smell of iodine that infuses all their clothes," he says. "There's no way to wash it out, all you can do is burn the clothes. Any flat that has been used as a krokodil cooking house is best forgotten about as a place to live. You'll never get that smell out of the flat."<br /><br />Addicts in Tver say they never have any problems buying the key ingredient for krokodil – codeine pills, which are sold without prescription. "Once I was trying to buy four packs, and the woman told me they could only sell two to any one person," recalls one, with a laugh. "So I bought two packs, then came back five minutes later and bought another two. Other than that, they never refuse to sell it to us, even though they know what we're going to do with it." The solution, to many, is obvious: ban the sale of codeine tablets, or at least make them prescription-only. But despite the authorities being aware of the problem for well over a year, nothing has been done.<br /><br />President Dmitry Medvedev has called for websites which explain how to make krokodil to be closed down, but he has not ordered the banning of the pills. Last month, a spokesman for the ministry of health said that there were plans to make codeine-based tablets available only on prescription, but that it was impossible to introduce the measure quickly. Opponents claim lobbying by pharmaceutical companies has caused the inaction.<br /><br />"A year ago we said that we need to introduce prescriptions," says Mr Ivanov. "These tablets don't cost much but the profit margins are high. Some pharmacies make up to 25 per cent of their profits from the sale of these tablets. It's not in the interests of pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies themselves to stop this, so the government needs to use its power to regulate their sale."<br /><br />In addition to krokodil, there are reports of drug users injecting other artificial mixes, and the latest street drug is tropicamide. Used as eye drops by ophthalmologists to dilate the pupils during eye examinations, Dr Yegorov says patients have no trouble getting hold of capsules of it for about £2 per vial. Injected, the drug has severe psychiatric effects and brings on suicidal feelings.<br /><br />"Addicts are being sold drugs by normal Russian women working in pharmacies, who know exactly what they'll be used for," said Yevgeny Roizman, an anti-drugs activist who was one of the first to talk publicly about the krokodil issue earlier this year. "Selling them to boys the same age as their own sons. Russians are killing Russians."<br /><br />Zhenya, quietly spoken and wearing dark glasses, agrees to tell his story while I sit in the back of his car in a lay-by on the outskirts of Tver. He managed to kick the habit, after spending weeks at a detox clinic ,experiencing horrendous withdrawal symptoms that included seizures, a 40-degree temperature and vomiting. He lost 14 teeth after his gums rotted away, and contracted hepatitis C.<br /><br />But his fate is essentially a miraculous escape – after all, he's still alive. Zhenya is from a small town outside Tver, and was a heroin addict for a decade before he moved onto krokodil a year ago. Of the ten friends he started injecting heroin with a decade ago, seven are dead.<br /><br />Unlike heroin, where the hit can last for several hours, a krokodil high only lasts between 90 minutes and two hours, says Zhenya. Given that the "cooking" process takes at least half an hour, being a krokodil addict is basically a full-time job.<br /><br />"I remember one day, we cooked for three days straight," says one of Zhenya's friends. "You don't sleep much when you're on krokodil, as you need to wake up every couple of hours for another hit. At the time we were cooking it at our place, and loads of people came round and pitched in. For three days we just kept on making it. By the end, we all staggered out yellow, exhausted and stinking of iodine."<br /><br />In Tver, most krokodil users inject the drug only when they run out of money for heroin. As soon as they earn or steal enough, they go back to heroin. In other more isolated regions of Russia, where heroin is more expensive and people are poorer, the problem is worse. People become full-time krokodil addicts, giving them a life expectancy of less than a year.<br /><br />Zhenya says every single addict he knows in his town has moved from heroin to krokodil, because it's cheaper and easier to get hold of. "You can feel how disgusting it is when you're doing it," he recalls. "You're dreaming of heroin, of something that feels clean and not like poison. But you can't afford it, so you keep doing the krokodil. Until you die."<br /><br />Some of the names in this story have been changed</p><p> </p>

home-made heroin substitute is having a horrific effect on thousands of Russia's drug addicts

Oleg glances furtively around him and, confident that nobody is watching, slips inside the entrance to a decaying Soviet-era block of flats,...

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John Galliano blamed drink and anti-depressant drugs for his vicious anti-Semitic attack in a Paris bar, saying he had ‘no recollection whatsoever’ of the event.

<p>John Galliano blamed drink and anti-depressant drugs for his vicious anti-Semitic attack in a Paris bar, saying he had ‘no recollection whatsoever’ of the event.<br /><br />The British designer arrived at court today with a bodyguard, dressed in a black three-piece suit, with black brogues, and black and white polka dot neck tie - but wearing no shirt. <br /><br />The 50-year-old showed no emotion in the Paris court as he was accused of calling 35-year-old Geraldine Bloch ‘dirty Jewish face’ on February 24.<br /><br />Galliano is on trial for two anti-Semitic attacks. He faces six months in prison and a £21,000 fine if found guilty. He denies purposefully offending anyone. <br /><br />He admitted, however, that Christian Dior, where he was chief designer at the time, was a ‘billion dollar business’ and ‘money-making machine’ and that intense work caused him to drink heavily and take anti-depressants.<br /><br />Galliano had also been devastated by the loss of ‘my beloved’ business partner and boyfriend Steven Robinson, an Englishman who died of a heart attack in Paris at the age of 38 in 2007.<br /><br /><br />Despite objections from Ms Bloch – a petite brunette who works as a museum curator - Judge Anne-Marie Sauteraud allowed Galliano’s burly guard to remain sitting close to him in the 17th Chamber of the Paris Correctional Court.<br /><br />The judge read out a charge sheet, saying Galliano had delivered a series of ‘public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity'.<br /><br />She said Galliano, whose hair was worn long with blonde highlights, was so used to swearing out loud following Champagne binges that his chauffeur was ‘trained’ to telephone a lawyer if arguments became too heated.<br /><br /><br />Protected: British designer Galliano leaves court in Paris with a burly minder by his side<br /><br />Mrs Sauteraud said trouble had broken out in La Perle, Galliano’s local bar in the French capital, on February 24, when he began insulting Ms Bloch.<br /><br />When her partner, 41-year-old Philippe Virgitti, intervened he was called ‘a dirty Asian s***’ and Galliano also implied that the Frenchman was an ‘illegal immigrant’.<br /><br />In turn, Mr Virgitti threatened to hit the designer over the head with a chair, before police arrived to restore order. <br /><br />Galliano told the court that he could only remember Mr Virgitti preparing to attack him, and the police arriving.<br /><br />‘I don’t remember very well what happened,’ Galliano told the court.<br /><br />Asked by Mrs Sauteraud if he recognised the words attributed to him, he replied: ‘I have no idea. I can’t remember. I have no idea I’m afraid.’<br /><br />Explaining his reliance on Champagne and drugs like Valium, Galliano said: ‘I have an addiction, I am a recovering alcohol addict. I’ve been in Arizona for two months following a rehab programme.’<br /><br />Referring to his deceased partner Mr Robinson, Galliano said: ‘Steven protected me from everything so I could be creative. <br /><br /><br />Defence: Galliano's lawyer Aurelien Hamelle arrives at the Paris court house as his trial begins<br /><br />'With his death I found I had no protection. The workload was increasing, but at Dior and Galliano (his eponymous label).’<br /><br />Galliano added: ‘When Steven died, with his parents, I buried him and then went back to do my fittings.’<br /><br />The court heard that Galliano’s outbursts were so common that his driver was used to calling his lawyer as soon as they started, and during the outburst in February he tried to put him on the phone to Ms Bloch.<br /><br />Ms Bloch was asked by bar staff to ‘swap seats’, but refused, and instead told the court that she suffered a 45-minute tirade during which Galliano accused her of having ‘revolting eyebrows, low-end boots and low-end thighs'.<br /><br /><br />Galliano, pictured posing at the Dior Haute Couture spring/summer 2010 collection presentation in Paris, was under so much pressure at the time of the alleged incident that he was taking Valium pills 'like they were candy', said his lawyer<br /><br />Asked by police if he’d been drinking, Galliano told officers: ‘I drank Champagne at lunch and during the afternoon I had a glass of Champagne while I did my shopping.<br /><br />‘I had dinner at a brasserie where I had some more Champagne, and finally I had a mojito at La Perle.’<br /><br />Fatiha Oumeddour, a 47-year-old prosecution witness who was not in court, told police she had been called a ‘f******* ugly dirty Jewish b****’ by Galliano at La Perle in October 2010.<br /><br />After the allegations were made, a video emerged of Galliano apparently telling two Italian women that their forebears should have been 'gassed', and 'I love Hitler'.<br /><br />Neither of the women has pressed charges, but the video will play an important part in the prosecution case.<br /><br />Galliano’s lawyer, Aurelien Hamelle, said: ‘Some things may have come out of his mouth that didn’t come from his brain.’<br /><br />Faced with mounting commercial pressures, Galliano had been swallowing Valium tranquilizer pills 'like they were candy', said Mr Hamelle.<br /><br />'When he was in this state, he had no way of knowing or remembering what he said. Every witness at the cafe has said he was acting out of character.'<br /><br /><br />In February, the designer is said to have called Geraldine Bloch, a museum curator, a 'dirty Jew' and her boyfriend, receptionist Philippe Virgitti, a 'dirty Asian' during a drunken rant in La Perle, a bar next door to his Paris flat<br /><br />Ms Bloch's lawyer,Yves Beddouk, said his client was not interested in money, and solely wanted one euro in symbolic damages.<br /><br />She also wanted the court's decision published in the French and international press, as well as in fashion magazines such as Elle and Vogue.<br /><br />Mr Beddouk said: 'Galliano considered that he was on his own territory, and that people he didn't like had no right to be there.<br /><br />'When you've got such a big reputation, you need to be even more respectful and cautious than ordinary people.'<br /><br />One of the key legal points made during the case was whether English swear words have the same effect in French, said the Judge.<br /><br />Her attempts at pronouncing some the words in English were met by sniggers in the packed court, with Mrs Sauteraud saying: ‘This is no laughing matter.’<br /><br />Galliano always swore in English, while all of his alleged victims are said to be from France. None are Jewish.<br /><br />Anti-Jewish behaviour is a criminal offence in France, meaning the multi-millionaire bachelor faces a six-month prison sentence, as well as a £21,000 fine, if found guilty of hurling 'public insults based on the origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity' of three people.</p>

John Galliano blamed drink and anti-depressant drugs for his vicious anti-Semitic attack in a Paris bar, saying he had ‘no recollection whatsoever’ of the event.

John Galliano blamed drink and anti-depressant drugs for his vicious anti-Semitic attack in a Paris bar, saying he had ‘no recollection what...

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Sex is an addiction like no other. It can wreck your relationship, ruin your reputation and even leave you jobless

<p>Sex is an addiction like no other. It can wreck your relationship, ruin your reputation and even leave you jobless. From US rep Anthony Weiner to golfer Tiger Woods to former US president Bill Clinton, all have earned a great deal of ridicule for succumbing to an overdose of sex. Experts say that <br /><br /> <br />the most alarming bit is that often you’re not even aware that you are a sex addict and only agree you have a problem after being caught. <br /><br />Psychiatrists in the city report a steady rise in the number of ‘sexoholics’ in recent years. “Five years ago, I hardly had a case, and now, I get some six to seven cases every month. It’s quite alarming,” says psychiatrist Dr Avdesh Sharma. <br /><br />A consequence of sadness?<br />Relationship expert Dr Kamal Khurana says that an increase in sex addiction is the result of growing dysfunctional families. “Sex addicts are mostly men in the pursuit of a fleeting sense of belonging. They are lonely people seeking happiness with wrong people at the wrong places,” says the psychiatrist. <br /><br />Sex addiction in real life and on the Internet often go hand in hand. Porn sites compete with each other to show novel ways of having sex and with multiple partners. This triggers the desire to experiment and sex becomes an addiction. Also, the chances of having affairs have multiplied. “With technology, odd working hours, and frequent travelling, it’s easy to have affairs and hide them,” says Dr Sharma. When caught, an addict experiences remorse and hits an emotional low. But strangely, he goes back to the addiction, as that’s the only pleasure he knows. <br /><br />Who is a sex addict?<br />Someone who has had 2-3 three affairs is not a sex addict. “A man who sleeps with his colleague, visits a prostitute, has a wife at home and has sex with different women while he is on business tours, is certainly one,” says Dr Sharma. An addict’s mind is always preoccupied with sex related thoughts. Once he finishes the act, the craving resurfaces after a few hours, he starts ‘missing’ sex and wants more of it. Refraining from the act makes the person fidgety and irritable. <br /><br />What’s the solution?<br />The first step towards de-addiction is accepting the problem and seeking medical help. Also try and confide into your spouse about the problem. You must also take a clean break. Cutting down time spent on surfing porn, or reducing visits to prostitutes, won’t help. To keep your mind off sex, take up hobbies. “Sports, painting or anything that you enjoy can stop your mind from wandering off. Also, spend more time with family and friends,” says Dr Khurana.</p>

Sex is an addiction like no other. It can wreck your relationship, ruin your reputation and even leave you jobless

Sex is an addiction like no other. It can wreck your relationship, ruin your reputation and even leave you jobless. From US rep Anthony Wein...

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Crack Addict Gets Just 164 Days In Jail After Paralysing Girl In Car Crash

<p>Rohan Bingham, 35, from Bestwood in Nottingham, left a young female student for dead after ploughing into her as he drove to a party to buy crack cocaine. Despite leaving student Clare Carver paralysed and being in possession of class A drugs Bingham was sentenced to just 6 months in jail. <br /><br />With a reduction in tariff for admitting his guilt Bingham will serve around 164 days in jail. Friends and family of Ms Carver are said to be shocked at the leniency of the sentence passed on Bingham whilst it is thought Ms Carver will never fully recover from her injuries.<br /><br />Ms Carver cannot walk and is barely able to communicate. Her father Dr Robert Carver said: "At present, Clare is full of gratitude. She is grateful to be alive, grateful for the care and attention that she has been shown, and grateful for the love and concern that surround and sustain her." <br /><br />Bingham was driving a Ford Focus at speed along the Derby Road in Nottingham when he drove into Ms Carver who was walking. He did not stop at the scene but drove off to a party leaving Ms Carver injured with massive head injuries by the roadside. <br /><br />Bingham was charged with careless driving, failing to stop and failing to report an accident.He was also charged with possession of a class A drug, crack cocaine.</p><p> </p>

Crack Addict Gets Just 164 Days In Jail After Paralysing Girl In Car Crash

Rohan Bingham, 35, from Bestwood in Nottingham, left a young female student for dead after ploughing into her as he drove to a party to buy ...

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How US obsession with addiction has spawned a rehab industry

<p>Too fond of sex? Drugs? Food? Gambling? Rehab centres either give you the chance of being cured or condemn you as an addict<br /><br />IN A last, desperate bid to save his political career before he resigned this week, Congressman Anthony Weiner announced that he was seeking professional help. “Going to rehab” is an obligatory station in the trajectory of flawed politicians and celebrities.<br /><br />After the arrest for drink-driving, the overdose or in flagrante bust for adultery, there’s a tearful, public confession, a spell in “rehab” – no one says “rehabilitation” any more – and usually, eventually, a relapse.<br /><br />In the old days, it was called sin. Today, it’s addiction. Americans are addicted to alcohol, drugs, food, the internet, gambling, sex . . . America is addicted to addiction. Rehab speaks to their conviction that there’s a solution to every problem, that redemption can be packaged, commercialised and purchased, and that no matter how many times you fall, you can always start over.<br /><br />Every year, three million Americans seek treatment in some 12,000 rehab facilities, says Adi Jaffe, the founder of the AllAboutAddiction.com website and a columnist with Psychology Today . Alas, he adds, rehab has at best a 25 per cent long-term success rate.<br /><br />Facilities range from government-provided outpatient clinics to luxury-resort-style complexes, concentrated in California and Florida. On their websites, complete with testimonials, Malibu facilities like Cliffside and Passages offer luxury rooms with ocean views, massages and five-star cuisine. Treatment costs up to $40,000 a month, and clients are advised that the brain needs at least three months to overcome addiction. Loving relatives are ready to pay any price to save errant spouses or offspring.<br /><br />It is the luxury rehab centres where actors like Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan seek treatment that capture the imagination of the public. The director of one centre in Malibu said celebrity clients consider they’re providing free publicity and often refuse to pay. “They send out SMS messages to the press, and within hours we’re surrounded by photographers. It causes problems with the other clients.”<br /><br />Addiction was long a source of social stigma, but celebrities have glamorised and banalised it. “There’s no getting around the fact that people want to do what celebrities do,” says Jaffe. “In the 1980s, everyone wanted to do cocaine because that’s what celebrities did. Now they want to go to rehab – that’s an improvement.” There is even a cable television show called Celebrity Rehab in which Dr Drew (the first-name basis is a legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous) treats washed-out celebrities. Two of Drew’s patients – Mike Starr, the bassist with the Alice in Chains grunge band, and actor Jeff Conaway of Grease fame – died of overdoses this year, hardly a recommendation for Dr Drew’s method. Perhaps his spin-off programme Sex Rehab is more effective.<br /><br />The rehab craze has spawned one of the most unregulated industries in the US. “You and I could start a rehab tomorrow in Los Angeles,” Jaffe says. One simply fills out the application form to receive a licence. A cheaper alternative, known as a “silver living facility” does not even require a licence. One of the services Jaffe offers is a referral system to centres he’s inspected. “I’ve seen places that put 20 or 30 people in a single family home, in bunk beds,” he says. A draft ordinance in Los Angeles would limit rehab centres to three patients to a room.<br /><br />The prevailing method of treating addiction is known as the “Minnesota model”, after the Hazelden organisation’s first residential centre in Minnesota in 1949. “The 28-day patient model was driven by what insurance would pay for,” says Jaffe. The idea was to end the snake-pit-style institutions in which mental illness and addiction were treated until then.<br /><br />The vast majority of rehab centres have adapted the 12-step therapy invented by Alcoholics Anonymous back in 1935. The first step is to admit that one is powerless to control one’s addiction. Half of the 12 steps mention God.<br /><br />“It’s very much a carry-over from the temperance movement of the 1800s,” says Steven Slate, a recovered addict and founder of TheCleanSlate.org website.<br /><br />“Alcohol was from the devil and you were a sinner. The devil got hold of you. Now it’s the disease that gets hold of you. It’s this outside thing; not me. It’s faith-healing and we are calling it treatment.”<br /><br />Slate is part of the backlash against America’s rehab culture. He believes the obsession with addiction and rehab has become a self-fulfilling – and self-perpetuating – prophecy.<br /><br />Like Jeffrey Schaler, the author of Addiction is a Choice and Gene Heyman, a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical school and author of Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, Slate says people do drugs, sex and alcohol because they are pleasurable, and that the best way to overcome addiction is to find other things that make you happy.<br /><br />Slate blames rehab culture for making people believe they’re engaged in a lifelong struggle against addiction. “It’s horrific,” he says. “They don’t allow people to move on with their lives. They keep them in their clutches.”</p><p> </p>

How US obsession with addiction has spawned a rehab industry

Too fond of sex? Drugs? Food? Gambling? Rehab centres either give you the chance of being cured or condemn you as an addict IN A last, despe...

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