United States | In the flesh

The rise of “tranq dope” is making America’s opioid crisis worse

A new drug cocktail rots people’s limbs

Image: AP
|NEW YORK

In the early 2010s a nightmarish new drug spread across Russia and Eastern Europe. Krokodil, a cheap substitute for heroin cooked up in kitchen laboratories, left users with scaly skin and rotting wounds. Now an eerily similar drug called “tranq dope” has infiltrated America. Last month the White House issued a national plan to fight it.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “In the flesh”

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