Is “Embalming Fluid” The Next Big Thing In Florida’s Drug Supply?

Every so often, you hear about a new drug making an appearance in Florida’s drug supply; often, it is just an old drug known by a new nickname.  Recently, a man got arrested at the Sol Fest music festival in Florida, because he bit a sheriff’s deputy while high on drugs, and one of the drugs in his system was “embalming fluid.”  On the one hand, if people were going to abuse embalming fluid, Florida would be the place to do it, right?  Embalming fluid, a stinky mixture of formaldehyde and alcohol, is what they use to make dead bodies look glamorous at funerals, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if some vain Floridians were experimenting to see if it would have the same rejuvenating effects on living flesh.  Likewise, if you want to embalm bugs and frogs and put them on display in a museum, Florida has plenty of different species.  The embalming fluid that has been making news headlines is not the same stuff that they use in funeral homes and science museums, though, it is a drug that you probably learned about in drug education class in school but have never seen in real life.  If the police confiscated drugs from you, and the crime lab is turning up results for drugs you barely knew existed, contact a Tampa drug crime lawyer.

If It Isn’t Really Embalming Fluid, Then What Is It?

Phencyclidine (PCP) is a dissociative anesthetic, a less pleasant cousin of ketamine.  It tends to make people anxious and make them feel hot, even on a rare cool day in Florida.  Even though it is a Schedule II controlled substance, it has never been used in clinical practice; experiments on PCP showed that patients who received it during surgery experienced hallucinations when they woke up.

Recreational use of PCP was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, but it declined in the 1980s as crack cocaine became the drug of choice.  It is often consumed as an additive to tobacco or cannabis.  Some dealers sprinkle PCP powder on the tobacco or cannabis before rolling the cigarette, hence the name “angel dust.”  Others dip the cigarettes in liquid PCP, hence the name “embalming fluid.”

Illegal sales of PCP tend to be a niche market; unlike ubiquitous drugs such as oxycodone and fentanyl, you can’t find PCP on the dark web unless you have excellent research skills.  As for street sales, it is prevalent only in a few cities in the U.S.  PCP is ubiquitous in Philadelphia but rare in Pittsburgh; D.C. loves PCP, but Baltimore never developed a taste for it.  It appears, though, that PCP is making its way to parts of Florida.  It may be present in powdered drug mixtures, unbeknownst to buyers.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing charges for possession of PCP or another controlled substance.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Sources:

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

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/epdy4e/pcp-america-pcp-use-washington-dc