Pronunciation: pee-see-pee
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number: 77-10-1. (Hydrochloride form 956-90-1)
Formal Names: Phencyclidine
Informal Names: Ace, Ad, Alien Sex Fiend (with heroin), Amoeba, Angel, Angel Dust, Angel Hair, Angel Mist, Angel Poke, Animal Trank, Animal Tranq, Animal Tranquilizer, Aurora Borealis, Belladonna, Black Dust, Black Whack, Blotter Acid, Blue Madman, Boat, Bohd, Bush, Busy Bee, Butt Naked, Cadillac, Cannabinol, Cigarrode Cristal, CJ, Clicker, Clickum, Cliffhanger, Columbo,
Cozmo’s, Crazy Coke, Crazy Eddie, Crystal, Crystal Joint, Crystal T, Cycline, Cyclone, D, Detroit Pink, Devil’s Dust, Dipper, DMT, DOA, Do It Jack, Domex, Drink, Dummy Dust, Dust, Dusted Parsley, Elephant, Elephant Trank, Elephant Tranquilizer, Elysion, Embalming Fluid, Energizer, Erth, Fake STP, Flake,
Flying Saucer, Fresh, Fuel, Good, Goon, Goon Dust, Gorilla Biscuit, Gorilla Tab, Green, Green Leaves, Green Tea, Happy Sticks, HCP, Heaven & Hell, He-Man,
Herms, Hinkley, Hog, Hog Dust, Horse Tracks, Horse Tranquilizer, Ice, Ill, Illy Momo, Jet Fuel, Juice, K, Kap, Kay Jay, K-Blast, Killer, KJ, Kool, Koolly High, Krystal, KW, LBJ, Leaky Bolla, Leaky Leak, Lemon Drop, Lemon 714, Lenos, Lethal Weapon, Little One, Live One, Log, Loveboat, Lovely, Mad Dog, Madman, Magic, Magic Dust, Magic Mist, Mean Green, Mint Dew, Mint Leaf, Mint Weed, Missile, Mist, Monkey Dust, Monkey Tranquilizer, More, New Acid,
New Magic, Niebla, Octane (mixed with gasoline), Oil, Omen, OPP, Orange Crystal, Ozone, P, Parsley, Paz, PCPA, Peace, PeaCe Pill, Peace Weed, Peep, Peter Pan, Pig Killer, Pikachu (mixed with MDMA), Pit, Polvo, Polvo de Angel, Polvo de Estrellas, Puffy, Purple Rain, Red Devil, Rocket Fuel, Scaffle, Scuffle, Selma, Sernyl, Sernylan, Sheets, Sherm, Sherman, Sherm Stick, Skuffle, Smoking, Snort, Soma, Space Base (mixed with crack cocaine), Space Cadet (with crack), Space Dust (with crack), Speedboat (with crack and marijuana), Spore, Squirrel (with crack and marijuana), Stardust, Stick, STP, Super, Super Grass (with marijuana), Super Joint, Super Kool, Super Weed, Surfer, Synthetic Cocaine, Synthetic THT, TAC, T-Buzz, Tea, Tic, Tic Tac, Tish, Titch, Trank, Wac, Wack, Water, Weed, Wet (alone or with marijuana), Wet Daddy, Whack (with crack or heroin), Whacky Weed, White Devil, White Horizon, White Powder,
Wicky Stick (with crack and marijuana), Wobble Weed, Wolf, Wooly (with marijuana), Worm, Yellow Fever, Zimbie, Zombie Dust, Zombie Weed, Zoom
Type: Depressant.
Federal Schedule Listing: Schedule II (DEA no. 7471)
USA Availability: Prescription
Uses.
This substance was invented in the 1920s, but not until the 1950s was it introduced as a drug, intended as a human and veterinary anesthetic. Human medical use soon ended because of psychological effects discovered during tests on patients. PCP is related to ketamine and, like that substance, has hallucinogenic qualities. Depending on how PCP is used, it can have stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogenic actions. In monkeys PCP is about 10 times stronger than ketamine.
Drawbacks.
PCP can make people feel aloof from the world around them, cause numbness, interfere with movement, and distort perception of time. Hallucinations, floating sensations, euphoria, and mania can occur. People may forget what they did while under the drug’s influence; such amnesia can last for 24 hours after a dose. Although euphoric effects are well documented,
one group of researchers noted bouts of depression brought on by chronic use of the substance, though not by intermittent use. Yet the same researchers also found people successfully using the drug as an antidepressant, and animal studies suggest PCP may have antianxiety properties. The substance reduces appetite in dogs. Rats lost weight when they chronically received PCP.
Law enforcement authorities say the drug can make people hostile and give them extra physical strength, and the same has been experienced by medical personnel dealing with overdose emergencies. Researchers, however, have generally not observed such results from PCP (although one of the very first studies in the 1950s noted violent reactions from about 5% of surgery patients who received the drug as an anesthetic). A study examining PCP cases at a
Los Angeles psychiatric hospital emergency room explicitly noted that wild conduct among PCP patients was uncommon. Perhaps police simply have more dealings with hostile individuals; for example, alcohol can embolden belligerent persons, but violence is not considered an inherent effect of alcohol.
Persons who become violent after taking PCP already have such a history without the substance, and during a police encounter they may well be under the influence of alcohol or other drugs as well. Military research found that PCP hostility did not occur unless persons were under stress, and not all stressed individuals reacted that way. The military study also found that psychotic
episodes did not occur with normal persons; someone had to be prone to psychosis in order for such behavior to occur while using the drug (a finding supported by other studies as well). In mice research PCP reduces violent behavior. Most species, including monkeys, act more docile after taking the drug. Some violent human episodes are described as coming not from aggression
but from a PCP user’s panic when police or medical personnel try to restrain the person. One group of addicts spoke of the substance lowering inhibitions, which is not the same as causing violence, although an already enraged person who loses inhibitions may engage in stormy behavior. In addition, users who attract attention from police or emergency medical personnel
are not necessarily representative of recreational users in general, either in personality or size of dose or reaction to the dose.
PCP’s physical effects include increased salivation, body temperature, pulse rate, and blood pressure. Case reports about humans indicate that PCP can raise blood pressure so high that a medical emergency occurs. The drug can bring on dizziness and double vision, create seizures, and cause muscle discoordination and damage. Numbness caused by PCP can promote injury due to lack of pain signals that ordinarily warn a person to stop doing something.
Cases of kidney failure and liver destruction have been associated with the
substance.
The higher one rises in the traditional evolutionary scale (for example, from mice to rats to humans), the lower the dose necessary for PCP to create anesthesia. Two observers who noted that trend concluded that human brains are exquisitely sensitive to PCP. Animal experiments reveal brain damage when the substance is used chronically for as little as five days. PCP addicts
have complained of memory trouble. A small human study found impaired ability for abstract thinking and for physical movement in response to signals, impairment measured years after the persons said they had stopped using PCP. Moreover, users of the drug may have normal scores on intelligence tests but have emotional disabilities and be crippled in their ability to cope with
problems. Those latter defects may be caused by the drug or may instead be reasons why people resort to the drug.
Abuse factors.
Initially PCP was a Schedule III drug, but in 1978 government authorities shifted it to Schedule II because of recreational use. At about that time a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital emergency room tested 145 consecutive patients for PCP; 63 were positive (over 40%).
A study of 200 recreational users found differences in effects reported by persons who took a little of the drug once a month and by persons who took a lot every day for years. Heavy users felt more pepped-up, violent, and suicidal. Regular users of PCP are known for self-destruction; one study found that 24% of regular users had tried to commit suicide, and 36% had overdosed
on other drugs. A study of PCP users who were treated at a charity hospital found no behavioral difference between black or white males, but black females acted much stranger and more aggressively than white females. The meaning of that finding is unclear—it could be racial, could be cultural, could be a statistical oddity that would disappear after more research.
When monkeys were given a choice between water or PCP, the animals showed no preference; such indifference is a sign of low addictive potential.
An experiment measuring rats with prenatal exposure to PCP found the animals were more sensitive to the drug than were rats lacking prenatal exposure— the opposite of tolerance. Dependence has been reported in monkeys that receive PCP. Pigeons that received the drug every day for 215 days did not develop dependence. Human research has found tolerance but not dependence among users, although dependence is suspected.
Various cold remedies contain doxylamine succinate, which can cause a false-positive drug test for PCP.
Drug interactions.
In a rat experiment neither alcohol nor PCP affected blood pressure, but blood pressure rose when they were used simultaneously. They also speeded up the heart. One human study found that PCP may be more likely to induce excitability in alcoholics than in nonalcoholics, possibly meaning that alcohol increases the likelihood of a manic reaction. In mice marijuana has reduced hyperactivity caused by PCP.
Cancer.
Not enough scientific information to report.
Pregnancy.
Two studies published only a few months apart in the 1980s gave different impressions about the prevalence of PCP use among pregnant women. In one study a group of 2,327 pregnant women were tested for PCP use; 19 were taking the drug. Those 19 were typically polydrug abusers. A different study of 200 pregnant women found 24 using PCP, a rate 15 times
higher than in the other group.
If a pregnant woman uses PCP, it passes into the fetus. Reports exist of PCP being detected in newborns three months after the mothers claimed to have stopped using the drug during pregnancy, which would mean that the drug remains in a fetus months after a pregnant woman stops taking PCP. Whether the women’s claims of abstinence were confirmed by laboratory testing during those months of pregnancy is unclear, however. In mice and pigs PCP builds
up in the fetus, reaching levels 7 to 10 times higher than in the female’s bloodstream.
The drug is suspected of causing birth defects. At dosage levels high enough to poison the pregnant female, birth defects have been produced in rats and mice. Rats with prenatal exposure to PCP show defective memory and learning ability. The substance is suspected of harming fetal brain development in humans. Pregnant women who use the drug tend to produce infants who are smaller than normal. In a group of 83 infants with prenatal PCP exposure,
almost half had a head circumference below the 25th percentile (meaning that 75% of infants in the general population have bigger heads and, by implication, larger brains). Some were below the 10th percentile. Smaller-than-normal infant skulls may interfere with physical growth of the brain. People who abuse one drug tend to abuse others as well; one study of 41 women who
used PCP during pregnancy found that most had also been using cocaine.
Two studies of women who used PCP during pregnancy found that all were poor; most were unmarried, were in an ethnic minority, and had received inadequate prenatal care. Such factors confound efforts to confirm what effect PCP alone has on pregnancy.
Offspring of mothers who have been using PCP can exhibit symptoms similar to those seen in infants undergoing opiate withdrawal—even though the drug is not an opiate, and research has yet to demonstrate that PCP dependence occurs. Infant distress may be real, but the newborn may be responding to the unpleasant effects of the drug itself rather than responding to sudden
absence of the drug.
A year after birth, a group of 57 babies with prenatal PCP exposure showed normal development in mental ability and physical coordination, although almost half were ill-tempered. About 15% had trouble sleeping, and the same percentage lacked normal emotional attachment. Those findings are consistent with other studies. Home environment, of course, may influence behavior as much or more than prenatal drug exposure. Factors noted above (lack of money, absent father, being in a disadvantaged ethnic minority) can weaken home life. Still, the kinds of brain function damage seen in animal studies are the kinds of damage that should interfere with children’s abilities to socialize normally—exactly the kind of deficit seen in children who have prenatal exposure to PCP.
In mice PCP not only passes into maternal milk, but milk levels are 10 times higher than maternal blood levels.
Additional information.
PCP is related to the Schedule I hallucinogens PCE (CAS RN 2201-15-2), PCPy (2201-39-0), TCP (21500-98-1), and TCPy (22912- 13-6).
Rat experimentation measured PCPy as about the same strength as PCP.
Other laboratory measurement shows TCP as stronger than PCP, and PCE as stronger than TCP. French military experiments found that TCP could protect rats and guinea pigs from the chemical warfare agent soman.
“Cannabinol” is a nickname for PCP and refers to THC, which is the active chemical in marijuana and dronabinol, but PCP is not THC. Likewise “DMT” and “STP” (DOM) are nicknames for PCP, but they are all different drugs.
Additional scientific information may be found in:
Baldridge, E.B., and H.A. Bessen. “Phencyclidine.” Emergency Medicine Clinics of North
America 8 (1990): 541–50.
Brecher, M., et al. “Phencyclidine and Violence: Clinical and Legal Issues.” Journal of
Clinical Psychopharmacology 8 (1988): 397–401.
Giannini, A.J., R.K. Bowman, and J.D. Giannini. “Perception of Nonverbal Facial Cues
in Chronic Phencyclidine Abusers.” Perceptual and Motor Skills 89 (1999): 72–78.
Graeven, D.B., J.G. Sharp, and S. Glatt. “Acute Effects of Phencyclidine (PCP) on
Chronic and Recreational Users.” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 8
(1981): 39–50.
Harry, G.J., and J. Howard. “Phencyclidine: Experimental Studies in Animals and
Long-term Developmental Effects on Humans.” In Perinatal Substance Abuse: Research
Findings and Clinical Implications, ed. T.B. Sonderegger. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 254–78.
Khajawall, A.M., T.B. Erickson, and G.M. Simpson. “Chronic Phencyclidine Abuse and
Physical Assault.” American Journal of Psychiatry 139 (1982): 1604–6.
Pradhan, S.N. “Phencyclidine (PCP): Some Human Studies.” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral
Reviews 8 (1984): 493–501.
Schuckit, M.A., and E.R. Morrissey. “Propoxyphene and Phencyclidine (PCP) Use in
Adolescents.” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 39 (1978): 7–13.
Sioris, L.J., and E.P. Krenzelok. “Phencyclidine Intoxication: Literature Review.” American
Journal of Hospital Pharmacy 35 (1978): 1362–67.
