Two recent, horrible acts in Camden, NJ, have been attributed to the use of “wet,” marihuana joints laced with PCP. “Wet” has led to a small resurgence in PCP use, from what little I could see online. Is there any evidence that a specific organization is behind its manufacture? I suspect it’s a more complicated process than making meth, and the market still seems kind of small.
Well, if it were at all widely known who is making it, they would pretty soon be stopped, I should think.
We know who is making all the meth (hint: it’s Mexican cartels), but they haven’t been stopped.
Meth is manufactured by a wide array of people. It’s not just the Mexican’s have the dastardly recipe.
Blaming the Mexican cartels all sounds a little Mexican Killer Bees!!!
Your point is well taken. However, the DEA’s fact sheet
(http://www.justice.gov/dea/druginfo/factsheets.shtm)
states that Mexican drug organizations have become the primary manufacturers and distributors. More to the point, the Mexican cartels moving meth are using precursor chemicals and not bottles of OTC cold medicine, AFAIK I’m not aware of a “shake and bake” recipe for PCP the way there is for meth. I’m wondering if there are independent chemists making PCP or if a known organized crime group is responsible.
PCP synthesis is not easy because the precursors are heavily watched in the USA(I think they are all list 1).
Grude, that’s what made me wonder who’s behind it. The DEA fact sheet says merely that it’s manufactured in clandestine labs. I figured if the precursors were hard to get that maybe it was a mob business.
Or done out of the country and shipped in cheaply.
I am not in the market for marijuana at all, but to be honest I hadn’t heard about PCP laced weed in better than 30 years - since the cautionary tales in health class in Jr High school…
“He thought he was a dog!”
I wonder how much of a market there is for PCP. Even among hardcore users, I imagine meth is much preferable to something like PCP.
Very different effects, one is a dissociative and one a stimulant. What I don’t understand is why anyone would bother with PCP when ketamine from Mexico or elsewhere is all over, same class of drug.
I had some friends seeking out PCP just to try the legend, none found it and one ended up smoking something that made him sick that was probably actual embalming fluid.
Right right I know. I was just comparing the popularity of the drugs and how they both can be “homemade”.
I don’t remember this lecture, though that’s probably typical for us cherry pies. Now I just need to stop my neighbor from eating me.
Great cite, but your link was broken. Here’s what you meant to point to.
How much is there actually? I know there’s been a steady number of PCP users, usually in the form you describe of PCP mixed with marijuana, but it did seem small in comparison to meth usage. I’ve also been away from my source of information on that subject for over 10 years now, so maybe things have changed a lot in that time.
My observation, certainly not a scientific study, is that few people who try PCP stick with it for long. A limited supply might have been the explanation for that. I think most of those people just ended up on crack or meth.
In the health class anti-drug film I saw, it told the (true) story of a guy who got stoned on PCP and then bit off the cheek of a toddler that was in the home.
It showed a picture the little kid’s mangled face, something I remember 25 years later…
(when he came down from his trip, the guy said that he thought he was a dog—A very bad dog, apparently)
Presumably it was, that’s what ‘wet’ is, a PCP laced joint dipped in formaldehyde. Whenever I hear about a drug ‘making a comeback,’ I always have to wonder if it actually ever went anywhere. These stories are usually more about the drug ‘making a comeback’ in the press than an actual change in the amount consumed. I’ve never had the remotest desire to try it, but ‘boat,’ short for ‘love boat,’ the same thing as ‘wet’ just by another name was not difficult to find in Trenton 20 or so years ago. I can’t imagine it was difficult to find in Camden 20 years ago either.
The “embalming fluid” angle fascinates and confuses me. What little info I’ve seen online (and I haven’t gone very deep) suggests that users were told they were smoking formaldehyde when in fact it was PCP. But when I first saw accounts ~20 years ago, the suggestion was the opposite. I think economics would make me lean toward “lots of ‘wet’ is just pot/cigs laced with formaldehyde.”
Law enforcemeent loves to find horrible crimes they can link to a scary drug, or one that is making a ‘resurgence’. It gives them a reason to ask for and spend more money on drug enforcement.
Remember the Florida cannibal? High on bath salts, right? That was all the news, statements from police, etc. No bath salts in his system, but they weren’t nearly as eager to report that when it was revealed.
One of the ways authorities track drug popularity is by testing everybody who gets arrested and charged with a crime. This article from the Washington post mentions 2002 being the time PCP use was most prevalent in DC with 14% of all criminal defendants testing positive. The same article mentions PCP coming from Mexico, California, and New York. The popularity of joints dipped in PCP leads me to believe that some of the Mexican drug cartels that supply marijuana are also manufacturing PCP.
In the interest of fighting ignorance, bath salts are a relatively new drug and the chemical formulas are constantly being changed to keep them legal. This makes it very hard to do a blood test for them. Just because they could not find bath salts in the Florida cannibal does not mean he did not have them, it is more likely a limitation of the test.