This is the first time the drug has found in Norway. According to local drug addicts, the lethal synthetic heroine came to Tromsø about a year ago.
The drug is very difficult to track and the police are not sure whether they have made confiscations of it or not. “Because the drug consists of so many chemicals, analysis may have shown that it was another drug”, Acting Chief of Police in Tromsø Einar Lysnes says to NRK. The police have started investigations based on information from drug addicts in the town.
Eirik Junge Eliassen, editor of the street magazine “Virkelig”, believes Tromsø can become a big distribution hub for the drug in the future. “The drug can be distributed all over the country from Tromsø”, he says. “Tromsø is so close to the border to Russia that is easy to bring it here.
Krokodil is the street name for home-made desomorphine. The drug is 3 times more powerful and 10 times cheaper than heroin, and has become an epidemic in Russia. It’s so named because regular users develop gangrenous, scaly skin resembling that of a crocodile. Krokodil is made with such toxic chemicals that it rots the flesh and bones of its users. The amount of tissue damage is so high that addicts’ life expectancies are said to be as low as two to three years.
