District prosecutors are backing a city lawmaker’s bid to make possession of PCP a felony, saying that the violent psychosis often spawned by the drug’s use warrants a felony charge in any amount. But D.C. defense lawyers respond that just holding the drug, without intent to sell it, does not merit a long prison sentence. Nine percent of adults arrested in 2009 in the District tested positive for PCP, or phencyclidine, according to D.C.’s Pretrial Services Agency. The Drug Enforcement Agency warns that PCP has “re-emerged as a drug of abuse” and the product on the streets today is more potent than that found during D.C.’s most violent days.
Scores of violent rampages in the District have been blamed on PCP. Its use is marked by paranoid thoughts, feelings of strength, power and invulnerability, panicked terrors and the sense of impending death.
2009 pretrial drug testing
» 29 percent of adults arrested tested positive for cocaine
» 9 percent for opiates
» 9 percent for PCP
Prosecutors are backing D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson’s bid to increase possession of liquid PCP to a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. No other drug creates such a brief, dangerous psychosis or drives people to commit such “bizarre and unthinkable” crimes, Patricia Riley, special counsel in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., said during a recent public hearing on the bill. The victims of PCP-fueled violence are often innocent bystanders. Mary Jones, a mother of three, was waiting for a bus on Southern Avenue in mid-December when she was crushed by a speeding sedan driven by a Maryland man, Glendale Ogburn, who was allegedly high on PCP. In 2006, Lankward Harrington murdered landscaper Jose Villatoro outside a Southeast D.C. apartment building after some grass clippings landed on him.
Liquid PCP is usually sold from small vials. A cigarette is dipped and smoked to get high. But because the vials contain an ounce or less and the dealer often is able to destroy all but a trace of the product before being arrested, prosecutors struggle to convict him.
Making a felony out of PCP possession would “relieve the government of its key responsibility to prove trafficking,” said Richard Gilbert, a D.C. defense attorney. Harsher penalties will result in more incarcerations, he said, “which is a trend that almost every other jurisdiction in the United States is trying to move away from.” But tougher penalties for simple PCP possession are an important tool for prosecutors given the small amounts dealers usually carry, D.C. police say. It is rare to find a person with a 1-ounce bottle not selling the drug to others, said Inspector Brian Bray, commander of the narcotics division.
