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.