Orange County Health Care Agency officials say three people have been hospitalized over the past month for botulism associated with injecting heroin–and that two of those folks wound up in intensive care.
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Apparently, something known medically as “wound botulism” and on the streets as “skin popping” happens when black tar heroin is injected into tissue instead of a vein. Symptoms include weakened muscles, slurred speech, double or blurry vision, trouble swallowing and, if not quickly treated, botulism can be deadly.
The OC Health Care Agency tells City News Service that California is currently experiencing an “epidemic” of wound botulism.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.