Social - Is pcp a popular recreational drug anywhere?

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Swim has seen almost every drug out there but has never came across pcp.Maybe its simply uncommon where swim lives or swim doesn't know the right people but it isn't a drug you really see.Is this stuff actually popular anywhere anymore?Does it have the popularity of mdma for example anywhere?

[Panthers007]

Odd your profile says Virginia. Virginia used to be the capitol of phencyclidine. It was called 'KW' down there - Killer Weed. It was infused into parsley leaves and commanded a high price. As one traveled further North towards NYC, the name changed to "tic." Or THC. This stuff was everywhere up into the late 1970's and early 80's. I recall well the writings on the walls in the Boston area: "Dust Is A Must!" "Fuck Paraquat! Smoke Dust!"

Then, in the early 80's - piperidine became heavily watched. Piperidine being the standard precursor for the synthesis of PCP. With the piperidine gone from the shelves of junior chemists and Mafia kingpins, PCP vanished, for all intents and purposes, from the marketplace.

I was not sad to see it go. It killed a friend of mine.

<cue music> "White Punks On Dope!" - the Tubes

[RaverHippie]

I heard it being asked for pretty often at raves in nyc. Usually by the name of sherm or wet. It was also called a scourge and a black eye of the local scene. And was often used as the worst example of what has infiltrated the scene.

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Swim doesn't really want anything to do with it.Just doesn't sound like his kind of thing.Something with such a stigma though ofcourse raises questions.Wow Virginia used to be pcp land?This must have been before swims time or maybe we are talking about Richmond or somewhere even more urban than where swim is.

[Panthers007]

It came out of Fairfax County. Much of it centered in and around Reston. Reston is a town built and owned by the Gulf Oil Corporation, and is a favorite residence of those creepy fellows who work in Langley, VA Can you say: CIA? Sure you can!

<edit> If anyone would like to hear a truly horrible (true) story of recreational PCP use, let me know and I'll print it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[cra$h]

hmm... swim lives in an upper middle class neighborhood and anyone that even does opium is labeled as a heroin addict. pcp would be EXTREMELY hard to find in this northeastern area

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Originally Posted by Panthers007

It came out of Fairfax County. Much of it centered in and around Reston. Reston is a town built and owned by the Gulf Oil Corporation, and is a favorite residence of those creepy fellows who work in Langley, VA Can you say: CIA? Sure you can!

<edit> If anyone would like to hear a truly horrible (true) story of recreational PCP use, let me know and I'll print it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I definitely want to hear it.

[Panthers007]

In Virginia, when 'KW' was a popular "party drug, dude" - the young folks would gather at whatever house the parents had fled from that night. It was post-1960's "Teenage-Wasteland" in the air. No one was pretending to use drugs for consciousness-expansion. Contraction was more to the point. Getting as fucked-up as possible was the goal. Hell - if the kids couldn't find a pot-pipe, they'd raid the plastic plumbing from the sinks of their pre-fab Gulf Oil homes. And smoke their grass along with lungfulls of melting, sintering polypropylene. Then out would come the whipped-cream on their sundae: The "KW."

The oily parsley that smelled like a chemistry lab would be packed carefully into a pipe - one hit's worth at a time - and make it's rounds to those who had paid-in for the KW. Sometimes it would be fun to turn on a really young kid who was trying to fit in with the older, teenage crowd. One such kid was 12 years old, and the teenager who had brought the PCP thought it would be amusing to see a 12 year old getting "dusted." And he did. This guy was the main supply of KW in the area - likely because he didn't care if the people he dealt with were utter slime - and he loved the money and popularity that went with the territory. So he made a special point to get the little kid good and wrecked.

The 12 year old staggered around the house - talking to hallucinations and occasionally screaming nonsensical words. Our anti-hero was quite proud of his work. But the party would prove short-lived. The 12 year old boy stumbled into the main room where the majority of the teenagers were listening to 70's shit-rock. He looked at his hand and began to scream. Then he pushed his thumb into his mouth. And he bit his thumb clean off. Blood went squirting all over the place, people, and walls. The festivities were over. Our anti-hero couldn't stop laughing as the other kids tried to figure out what to do about the one-thumbed 12 year old. Still laughing, the perpetrator left. It remains unclear who did what to get the little kid to a hospital. Our anti-hero had other concerns. He was out of KW. So...

The next day a slightly older acquaintance called up our anti-hero. He had an offer to make for some really strong KW - and at a really enticing price. He wanted the money up front, as was the custom. And then would tell the buyer where to go to find the stash. The police were very active in this area, so such precautions were routine. So our anti-hero forked over the cash and was told where the KW was to be found. That night he made his way to a ground-level electrical relay box that supplied power to the neighborhood. Of course it was turned off. It was ground-level. Our anti-hero thought this was a stroke of genius. Who would look for illegal drugs in a power-box? Ha! Ha! Ha!

It was dark. He opened the metal door to the power-box, but couldn't see to well. So he extended his arm all the way inside. There was a blinding flash of blue-white light. What he remembers was screaming as he lay on the ground on fire. His right arm was gone. So was half his right leg. He was on fire. He doesn't remember much else until he woke up in a hospital. His arm was blown off above the shoulder, so there couldn't be any re-attachment. And prosthetics would not work as he had no muscles left for motion control. His right leg was blown off above the knee, so only a plastic limb could be slipped onto the stump so he could stand up. He was given a settlement from Gulf Oil - a living allowance. But he wasn't terribly satisfied. He wanted the power of being the big man with the KW again.

He traveled north and arrived at Bongo's laboratory, holding a hand-written synthesis for garage-grade phencyclidine. "C'mon, Bongo, be cool about it, man. It's good money! I'll do all the selling, dude!" Bongo listened to the story and looked at his old friend's mangled body. He couldn't believe this one-armed caricature of his old friend was actually resorting to psychologically strong-arming Bongo to manufacture the very drug that had cost his old friend an arm and a leg. Bongo flatly refused to be a party to this madness and told him so. Bongo actually had a bottle of piperidine in his chemical locker. After the kid left, Bongo went to the locker, took out the bottle of piperidine, and poured it down the drain.

A month later he heard the news: His old friend had placed a razor-blade in his teeth, and slit his wrist. He bled to death.

The guy who offered to sell the KW to this kid was the older brother of the 12 year old boy who bit his thumb off. No charges were ever filed.

[purplehaze]

What goes around comes around.

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Thats absolutely horrible.If anything its made swim firmly decide not to try pcp if he ever comes across it though.It just sounds bad in every way.

[purplehaze]

^ah, I second that. Phaze has heard nothing but bad things from PCP. Most are described has horror day dreams. Doesn't sound fun or helpful in life for any reason.

Also phaze has heard of some people dipping joints of marijuana in formaldhyde(Sp?) and selling it off as PCP. Panthers do you have any info or bongo archives on that?

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Originally Posted by purplehaze

^ah, I second that. Phaze has heard nothing but bad things from PCP. Most are described has horror day dreams. Doesn't sound fun or helpful in life for any reason.

Also phaze has heard of some people dipping joints of marijuana in formaldhyde(Sp?) and selling it off as PCP. Panthers do you have any info or bongo archives on that?

Swim has seen it person sort of.Swim lived with a guy that had a jar of formaldehyde that he would actually soak cannabis in,dry,then smoke.PCP might sound horrible but if swim had to choose between smoking PCP or embalming fluid he would probably choose the PCP.

[purplehaze]

Phaze understands this is mortician-ware used to inject into dead bodys. Phaze has heard reports that it sets your face on fire immediately upon smoking, more information on this would be an enjoyable read for him.
No plans on trying either, ever.

[RaverHippie]

I'm pretty sure that this is where drug slang went horribly wrong. From what I've heard embalming fluid or something like that was used as slang for PCP so people ended up smoking formaldehyde thinking it could get them high like PCP...AFAIK

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Swim was handed a blunt of this horrid embalming fluid soaked weed.Swim held it up to his mouth and right when the horrible smell got to his nose he decided not to inhale and handed it back.

[Paracelsus]

Is pcp a popular recreational drug anywhere?

[Allalong]

SWIM is in the DC area, though he personally avoids it like the plague, PCP seems to be pretty big here given its stigma.

Ketamine too...dissociatives are pretty popular in some circles.

[crackcityrocker]

Originally Posted by RaverHippie

I'm pretty sure that this is where drug slang went horribly wrong. From what I've heard embalming fluid or something like that was used as slang for PCP so people ended up smoking formaldehyde thinking it could get them high like PCP...AFAIK

im under the same impression, i knew a couple of kids in high school that tried this. well, at least in their situation they were thinking PCP effects. they immediately swore off the 'hyde

[raven3davis]

Do people really smoke formaldehyde? SWIM has heard many people talk about formaldehyde and embalming fluid but he thinks 90% of them are just getting their slang mixed up. There are probably those select few who decide to smoke formaldehyde but their first time is probably their last.

PCP is one of those drugs that SWIM associates with more ghetto areas. He has only seen it in the liquid form, which is usually called wet. A small vial worth is enough for 3 cigarettes, or "sherm sticks." There are so many horror stories with PCP it is absurd. Unfortunately, many of these stories are true. Of course SWIM had to see what the fuss was about so he took a few hits. Definitely not his drug of choice. It is a very dirty feeling drug and it smells and tastes horrible.

[Panthers007]

Fast Chemistry Lesson 101:

Formaldehyde is sold as a gas (37%) dissolved in water and alcohol. Formaldehyde is a gas at room-temperature. Water and alcohol will not burn. So the water/alcohol must evaporate. The formaldehyde would have been released as a gas before the "sherm" was dried enough to ignite.

Lesson: It's bullshit. And it's bad for you! No one can smoke formaldehyde. Period. Now back on...

Reputation Comments on this post:

I've always wondered about this

[spacelord]

Panthers007, that's pretty awful.

But still, but harm induced (not necessarily directly) by drug abuse is a quite common thing. So the question remains, if it is possible to recreationally use PCP maybe even safely..

[Panthers007]

The person I know to ask is in a box six feet under the ground. He would tell you "Yes! This shit's the best!"

Perhaps you could hire a 'Medium' to disinter his incorporeal spirit and ask him directly. Though his answer might cost an arm and a leg.

His name was Chris Cherry. Try the directory.

[Raz]

I suspect this drug was quite popular in NYC and NJ during the 90's considering the fact that Method Man named his first LP, Tical, lac(e) it backwards (weed mixed with PCP is "laced").

There was also a record Waterworld (PCP being called wet) which was all about PCP.

[Panthers007]

As a former radio DJ, I saw a thousand theories fly by regards what this song meant, that song meant, so forth. I found the only sure-fire way to step beyond speculation was to directly ask the guy/gal who wrote it.

It's like the Grateful Dead song: Walk Me Out In The Morning (Morning Dew was one title). Everyone was cock-sure it was about nuclear war. And became the hallmark Dead anti-war song. Actually the Dead swiped the lyrics from a 12th century English love-song!

[Matt The Funk]

Pretty bad story. Most REAL stories SWIM has heard involving PCP include OBE's and something that sounds like a very intense combo of DXM/Ketamine with it's own fat twist. SWIM hasn't really come across PCP. Well not anyone sell it. SWIM has seen laced herb (kinda funny, but poorer people will do it to brownschwag no one else would buy in this area) and has inquired around about it a few times, to find maybe 3-4 people who said they could probably get it....and maybe 1 or 2 who actually could. Anyways thanks for sharing that story!