Phencyclidine (PCP or Angel Dust)
It produces profound analgesia to a degree that even some major surgical procedures may be done without supplemental drugs. It has the decided disadvantage of producing in some patients severe excitement on emergence and severe hallucinatory disturbances.
Description of the first clinical study of phencyclidine use in humans as an anaesthetic (1958).
History
Phencyclidine (PCP or ‘angel dust‘) was investigated as an intravenous anaesthetic in the 1950s but was withdrawn from the market because it produced unpleasant hallucinations, agitation and delirium in humans. The product was later used as a veterinary anaesthetic but is no longer available. Abuse has not been a major problem in the UK and even the USA, where phencyclidine was once of serious concern, abuse now appears to be much less common and more localised (e.g. Washington DC). A US study in 1994 reported that 1.6 per cent of senior pupils at high school had used phencyclidine compared with 7 per cent in 1979. A large number of derivatives has been developed illicitly but none of these has gained widespread acceptance on the street. An example is 1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)pyrrolidine or PHP; others include PCC, PCE and TCP. Read more…
