http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/16/health/krokodil-zombie-drug/index.html
There's a video on the featured page, for the curious. This drug is frightening as hell.
It's about legit as the "bath salts make you eat faces" bullshit.
IIRC, all those Illinois, Oklahoma and Arizona cases were just heroin users. They got infections from shitty needles they kept in something I would assume has similar contents to an animal waste discharge pipe.
EDIT:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-27/news/ct-met-krokodil-hunt-20131027_1_bath-salts-heroin-false-alarmIn a sweep modeled after the agency's successful search for the source of deadly fentanyl-tainted heroin some six years ago, 200 DEA agents across five states have made finding krokodil a top priority, Riley said.
"We have run quite a few buys in the city and suburbs," Riley said "What the lab tells us is it's just heroin."
Some experts in law enforcement and public health say it's unlikely the drug will be widely used beyond the remote areas of Russia and eastern Europe where it became popular a decade ago.
The Tribune contacted health officials in nine states where reports of krokodil have surfaced in the media, but no agency, yet, has found conclusive proof that the drug is in use.
...
And even the symptoms associated with krokodil use are not that unique, said Jane Maxwell, a researcher at the University of Texas who has studied drug trends and sits on a National Institute on Drug Abuse panel that has identified new drug variants.
Long-term users of injectable drugs like heroin can develop infections from reusing needles and exposing themselves to all sorts of bacteria, leading to staph infections or those that are resistant to methicillin, known as MRSA infections.
Maxwell said there have been outbreaks of infections among heroin users that point out a peril facing users of illegal drugs that is well known, and less insidious than a new concoction: quality control.
Thankfully, Kathleen Kane-Willis of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy has some helpful street drug shopping tips:
Kathleen Kane-Willis, a director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, said she is skeptical that the drug is in widespread use here.
Given the health risks associated with heroin use, it might seem that addicts could be so desperate for a fix that they would be willing to inject themselves with gasoline to get high, but in the U.S., where a bag of heroin costs as little as $5, users have easier options, Kane-Willis said.
The images of rotting flesh and zombielike krokodil junkies could scarcely make for a more frightening cautionary tale about drug use, Kane-Willis said. A krokodil panic, Kane-Willis fears, will draw attention away from the need for better treatment options for drug users.
"But when you try to scare people with something that's not real, you lose credibility," she said. "And when you dehumanize someone with addictions, you make it harder for them to seek help."
