This is still going on?

It's insanely cheap and potent.

TBH the only way I think it could be nipped in the bud in the west is by legalising heroin to push the price down.

Junkies will find a way. If the easiest way is a drug that will kill & injure them many many times faster than a more costly and harder to obtain alternative, then that's the drug they will gravitate towards.

Much like with the rise of crystal meth.

Crack and heroin require them to maintain a fairly substantial income to fund the habit. Addictions to Crystal and Krokodil can be sustained on a relative pittance.

I can't invoke channels, but I propose EIA.

And I know this is terrible, but frankly if there is any segment of the global population that we can collectively benefit from "evolving away from", it is idiots like this that inject shit like Krokodil into themselves until they are removed from the gene pool.

Very hard for me to feel any empathy for such people. Maybe I'd feel differently if I personally knew any addicts ... but I'm not sure even that would help.

Moving this video to Mordhaus's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

I do not mean to be rude, but the reason why you're feeling no empathy is because you assume that drug addiction is a choice that people make, turning away from better and brighter options and choosing the short road to an early death.

It isn't. It's generally a result of inability to deal with life, a job, trauma from their past etc. It is a result of social systems which allow people to sink to the point they need an escape. Look at any mental ward, most of the inmates (if allowed) will smoke. Same with various anon groups, smoking/coffee etc are almost encouraged as an alternate addiction to the one that will put them in a grave far earlier.

Addiction is a crutch, a way of escaping from something else.

The work by Carl Hart on addiction provides a lot of proof that when given social interaction and ways to reintegrate with society, addicts can and do have the fortitude to get off drugs. And that most drug addicts are fully functional, and drugs are a way for them to cope with the stresses or lack of control in their life.

http://www.drcarlhart.com/

To fix a problem, you first have to understand it. That does not require sympathy or empathy. That is basic science and it's based on evidence. That the DEA is freaking out over krokodil is because they don't understand that drug abuse in the US is a factor of the social situation people find themselves in. At least for the classes of people that will use a cheap and dangerous drug (not to put too fine a point on it, predominately black). It would not be unexpected that because of the supposed danger, users found with krokodil may end up with far harsher sentences than heroin users. Soaring African-American incarceration rates again?

Funny how we never see videos like this over oxycodone or cocaine abusers, or housewifes who will pop whatever prescription they can get their hands on. They are no less addicted, but it's a nice, clean, acceptable addiction that allows them to stumble on through life. Is that EIA?

just to add what @Asmo rightly pointed out,is that addictions are a symptom of internal and external forces.

when we consider the state of our society and it its inherent social structures,and we compare addiction rates and suicide rates,i feel there is sufficient evidence for concern.

just look at americas suicide rates.
http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

we can see a steady increase.
when we factor in military suicides,which have been averaging one,to up to 22 a day since 2009.the larger picture becomes incredibly disturbing.

my point,which is right with asmo,is that while one group kills themselves due to hopelessness,emotional stress or an inability to cope or adapt in these trying times.

the addict is doing the same thing,for the exact same reasons.just on a slower and more precipitous path of self-destruction.

when asked as a child what they wanted to be when they grow up.no child ever answered that their desire was to become an addict.

the "war" on drugs,
is a war on people.

and treating this as a legal/criminal problem is missing the point entirely.
this is a social issue,that can be treated by providing social solutions.

dr bruce alexander discovered some amazing results in rats you may find interesting @MilkmanDan:

http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park

What would you say about people who self harm in other ways? What about anorexia? Alcoholism? Suicide? It's all a bit more complex than just idiocy.

I get that the EIA tag is a bit of a joke and all, but lets not get too social darwinist eh? (Reducto ad Hitlerum not withstanding)

@Asmo , @enoch , @Jinx --

I appreciate what you're saying and I know that I *should* feel the way(s) you suggest. ...But I have a hard time actually getting there.

At some point, we are all responsible for our own actions, and the consequences of our own actions. Even though these people may not have any of the sort of opportunities that I take for granted, even though circumstances well outside of their control might push them into the direction of addiction, at some point they made a choice to start up with this crap. And they make a choice to continue with the drugs, even if the physical and mental addiction makes it nearly impossible for them to choose anything else.

There's a lot of problems in the world. There's a lot of people who unjustly have to contend with major problems that are absolutely 100% in no way their fault. Addicts are at least partially at fault for getting themselves into the mess that they are in. That puts them way down the line on my empathy list, that's all I'm saying.

Asmo said "To fix a problem, you first have to understand it. That does not require sympathy or empathy." That in particular helps me look at the issue from a different angle. Just because addiction is not a problem on my personal priority list, I 100% agree that it *is* a problem, and it is a problem that affects *me* also, indirectly if not directly. I live in a society of people, and helping each individual person in the society can help *everyone* in the society.

The war on drugs and its approach of mass incarceration, etc. pretty clearly doesn't work well to alleviate the problem. The part of me that (mostly jokingly, but not entirely) would tag this as EIA might be happy to take the approach of letting these people all shoot themselves up with krokodil or whatever else until they kill themselves. But rationally, I know that wouldn't fix anything. I'm not convinced that it would be worse than the war on drugs, but it definitely wouldn't be ideal.

So rationally, I know that social systems to help people break those addictions and whatever situations or psychological problems contributed to them are probably the optimal solution, from a society-wide sort of view. But I don't want to be at the front lines of any of that myself, because I think that it *does* require some empathy to the situation to be an effective contributor there, and I simply recognize that I personally can't scrounge any up.

So by all means, STOP taking my tax dollars and spending them on the war on drugs, and START spending them on social programs that experts and scientists who study addiction believe will do a better job of actually fixing the problem. But that's the extent of the personal involvement that I want to have.

My comment wasn't telling you to have more personal involvement, or criticising you for a lack of empathy. Just pointing out a possible reason as to why you would blithely attach "EIA" to something which is another form of human tragedy. ; )