What Kind of Drug is PCP?
PCP is a “dissociative anesthetic.” It was first used in medicine as an anesthetic for surgery. PCP prevents the user from feeling pain while high. PCP also temporarily changes a person’s understanding of the boundaries of his or her own body. While under the influence of PCP, a person may look at his own hand and not realize whose hand it is. This inability to recognize one’s own body parts coupled with the inability to feel pain allow the drug user to damage his or her own body. In one published account, a person jailed for drug possession blinded himself by mutilating his eyeballs with his bare hands. Later, he claimed to remember destroying his eyes but reported that he felt no pain while doing it. Other bizarre behaviors reported in the medical literature include biting one’s forearms “almost to the bone,” appearing nude outdoors for long periods of time in Winter, or “standing in the park like a statue.” While people do not routinely blind themselves when taking PCP, violence or
