You might think it was a bad joke, but it’s quite serious (and even tragic). At the end of October 2021, a 35-year-old man presented to the Emergency Department of the Bronx Care Hospital Center (in the United States).
The 30-year-old complains of pain “intolerable“at the level of the penis and the scrotum: questioned by the doctors, he ended up admitting to them having injected cocaine into the superficial dorsal vein of the penis…
The penis of the man is, one suspects it, in bad condition: in a report published at the end of February 2022 in the American Journal of Case Reportsdoctors describe blackened, edematous (swollen) and purulent tissue.
Cocaine, second most used drug in France after cannabis
A drug addict for several years, the 35-year-old explains to doctors that he has already injected cocaine intravenously into his penis on (at least) two occasions in the previous two weeks “without complications“.
Because he refused the removal of gangrenous tissue, the 30-year-old was first treated with antibiotic drugs injected intravenously for 5 days; for a further 5 days, he received oral antibiotic treatment.
If his state of health has (fortunately) improved, the man refused to be taken care of for his drug addiction… and the doctors lost track of him. In France, according to the Ministry of the Interior, approximately 250,000 people use cocaine “to varying degrees“: 5.9% of 15-34 year olds have already tested this illicit substance, the second most consumed in France after cannabis.
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