Phencyclidine

Phencyclidine (also called PCP, Angeldust and others) is a dissociative/anaesthetic developed in the 1960s by Parke & Davis.

Chemical structure of PCP. (Image in the PD)

Chemically and pharmacologically it is very similar to Ketamine. However, one important difference is the excretion of the molecules, going on rather rapidly in the case of Ketamine, but extending over weeks in the case of PCP.

It was used for several years in human anaethesia, but patients showed rather strange hallucinatory behavior afterwards, like searching for their head in the hospital corridors. This and the long halflife in the human body (it gets stored in the fatty tissue) makes it useless for medical applications. Therefore it is used only in veterinary medicine these days, mainly for horses.

It is consumed recreationally, mainly in the USA, and is often involved in violent behavior and (otherwise unexplainable) traffic accidents. Prolonged consumption tends strongly to produce mental and physical illness.

PCP is broken down by human metabolism into PCHP, PPC and PCAA. When smoked, some of it is broken down by heat into 1-(1-phenyl)-1-cyclohexene (PC) and piperidine.

Conversion of PCP into PC and piperidine by heat. (Image in the PD)