PCP- Abuse is Deadly

Images of PCP-crazed individuals smashing in car windows with no apparent regard for their health are shocking, but can be understood when one understands the effects PCP have on the body and mind.

“PCP users don’t usually realize that taking this drug can seriously affect their mental state, which in turn can cause them serious physical damage,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for Narconon Drug Rehab GA. “PCP was originally developed by Parke Davis in 1956 as an anesthetic. The drug proved to have too many adverse reactions, as well as being addictive, so its medical use was discontinued.

“Unfortunately, as its effects include anesthesia and delusions, someone abusing PCP may not feel damage done to themselves or others, and acting on their delusions can lead to serious harm.”

What is PCP and what are its effects?

PCP is a white crystalline powder that is readily soluble in water or alcohol. It has a distinctive bitter chemical taste. PCP can be mixed easily with dyes and turns up on the illicit drug market in a variety of tablets, capsules, and colored powders. It is normally snorted, smoked, or ingested. For smoking, PCP is often applied to a leafy material such as mint, parsley, oregano, or marijuana. Depending upon how much and by what route PCP is taken, its effects can last approximately 4–6 hours.

The very same characteristics that led to the incorporation of hallucinogens, and PCP into ritualistic or spiritual traditions have also led to their propagation as drugs of abuse. Importantly, and unlike most other drugs, the effects of hallucinogens, including PCP, are highly variable and characteristically unreliable, producing different effects in different people or at different times. Because of its unpredictable nature, the use of PCP can be particularly dangerous.

How does PCP Affect the Brain?

The use of PCP as an approved anesthetic in humans was discontinued in 1965 because patients often became agitated, delusional, and irrational while recovering from its anesthetic effects. PCP is a “disassociative drug,” meaning that it distorts perceptions of sight and sound and produces feelings of detachment (dissociation) from the environment and self. First introduced as a street drug in the 1960s, PCP quickly gained a reputation as a drug that could cause bad reactions and was not worth the risk. However, some abusers are attracted by feelings of strength, power, and invulnerability as well as a numbing effect on the mind that PCP can induce. Among the adverse psychological effects reported are:

-Symptoms that mimic schizophrenia, such as delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, disordered thinking, and a sensation of distance from one’s environment.

-Mood disturbances: For example, approximately 50 percent of individuals presenting for drug-induced problems in an emergency room setting and meeting criteria for PCP use in the past 48 hours reported significant elevations in anxiety symptoms.

-People who abuse PCP for long periods of time report memory loss, difficulties with speech and thinking, depression, and weight loss. These symptoms can persist up to a year after stopping PCP abuse.

-PCP is addictive—its repeated abuse can lead to craving and compulsive PCP-seeking behavior, despite severe adverse consequences.

-At low to moderate doses, physiological effects of PCP include a slight increase in breathing rate and a pronounced rise in blood pressure and pulse rate. Breathing becomes shallow; flushing and profuse sweating, generalized numbness of the extremities, and loss of muscular coordination may occur.

-At high doses, blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration drop. This may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, flicking up and down of the eyes, drooling, loss of balance, and dizziness. PCP abusers are often brought to emergency rooms because of overdose or because of the drug’s severe untoward psychological effects.

While intoxicated, PCP abusers may become violent or suicidal and are therefore dangerous to themselves and others. High doses of PCP can also cause seizures, coma, and death (though death more often results from accidental injury or suicide during PCP intoxication). Because PCP can also have sedative effects, interactions with other central nervous system depressants, such as alcohol and benzodiazepines, can also lead to coma.
 
How widespread is the Abuse of PCP?

In 2007, 2.1 percent of high school seniors reported lifetime use of PCP; past-year use was reported by 0.9 percent of seniors; and past-month use was reported by 0.5 percent. Data on PCP use by 8th- and 10th-graders are not available.

National Survey on Drug Use and Health

In 2006, 6.6 million persons aged 12 or older reported that they had used PCP in their lifetime (2.7 percent), although only 187,000 persons in the same age group reported use in the past year—this represents a slight increase over 2005.

Source: NIDA

If someone you know is using PCP, call us.  We have a 76% success rate.

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Call Narconon Drug Rehab in Georgia at 1-877-413-3073.
      
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