Ketamine’s Hellish Cousin Is Gaining A Foothold In Florida

If you had surgery at an outpatient surgery clinic, chances are that you were not asleep through the entire procedure.  The surgeon might have talked to you, and you might have understood.  Perhaps you even responded, or maybe you just gibbered like a Minion, in response to an interlocutor visible only to you.  If you weren’t asleep, then what was happening to you.  As every member of Generation Z knows, you were in a K-hole, the state your mind enters when you ingest ketamine.  The dissociative anesthetic ketamine is one of the most commonly used drugs for surgical anesthesia; it is also a widespread drug of abuse in the United States and many other countries.  Ketamine is not the only dissociative anesthetic out there, only the most pleasant.  Before ketamine became popular for recreational use, there was phencyclidine, better known as PCP or angel dust.  While it has its dedicated fan base, most people have only heard of it in drug education class.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that PCP has recently become more prevalent in Florida’s recreational drug supply.  If you are facing criminal charges related to PCP, contact a West Palm Beach drug offenses lawyer.

Old Drugs Eventually Become New Again

Earlier this year, an audience member at a musical festival in Florida was high on drugs, so he bit a sheriff’s deputy.  What else is new?  This is Florida.  What do you think people do at music festivals?  Dance?  Sit quietly and listen?  Film the performers with their phones?  The unusual thing about this incident is not that a drugged out man bit a law enforcement officer, but rather the drugs for which he tested positive.  Sure, he had taken the usual ketamine and LSD you often find at music festivals, but he also tested positive for PCP.

The reason PCP was never approved for medical use is that, even though it caused anesthesia in the short term, researchers found that patients would hallucinate and become agitated after surgery.  PCP is a Schedule II controlled substance, which means that, in theory, it could be medically useful, but in practice, anesthesiologists administer ketamine, instead.

In the 1960s, PCP found a following on the streets.  While San Francisco’s Summer of Love was fueled by weed and LSD, PCP was more popular on the mean streets of Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, among several other cities.  Even though its use declined sharply in the 1980s, its influence seems to be spreading.  You can even find it on the dark web, but only if you know who to ask.  It is usually added to tobacco or cannabis, either as a powder known as angel dust or as a liquid known as embalming fluid.

Contact a West Palm Beach Criminal Defense Lawyer Today

Attorney William Wallshein has more than 38 years of experience, including five years as a prosecutor in Palm Beach County.  Contact William Wallshein P.A. in West Palm Beach, Florida to discuss your case.

Sources

justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs11/12208/index.htm

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/pcp.pdf

washburnhouse.com/addiction-recovery-blog/wet-drug/

fosterfollynews.net/2024/05/07/holmes-county-florida-sheriffs-office-arrests-james-michael-anderson-for-aggravated-battery-on-law-enforcement-resisting-arrest-at-sol-fest/

vice.com/en/article/pcp-america-pcp-use-washington-dc/

edm.com/news/man-on-drugs-bites-chunk-police-officer-head-florida-festival