PCP long term side effects?

[SomeDudeHere]

A friend of a friend has tried PCP and I sort of worry about him. Before I go "OMG PCP THAT'S HORRIBLE! YOU'RE RETARDED!" I figure might as well look at the facts before judging (after all, I share the view cannabis should be medicinally legal in all the states and easily obtained).

All I can find is that PCP is fine to take in small doses, but big ones are a huge no no. The "causes violence" thing is a crock (unless your a naturally violent person anyway, which he isn't), and it is best to space doses in a week or two.

I haven't found anything about long term side effects of light recreational use. He doesn't normally use it, so it is more like once in a blue moon type of thing. Do I have nothing to worry about?

EDIT: and I couldn't see anything that would lead it to being addictive.

 

[Incunabula]

it´s not that I am the big expert on PCP, or something. But I don´t think you have anything to worry about.

You can read more about it on Erowid:
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/pcp/pcp.shtml
in case you didn´t know.

 

[Timothy Leary]

From what I understand it is fairly neurotoxic, and while olney's lesions may not occur in humans, studies on humans show deficits after repeated usage. However if this is very infrequent usage then I would not expect any statistically significant. (ie so small as to be indescribable from chance fluctuations) But, if I would still not touch PCP even once because of the toxicity, even though it would likely not do anything if used very infrequently. I feel uncomfortable around ketamine and even though it sounds very interesting and is much less toxic I may not try it for the same reason I would not try PCP. I have tried DXM and I still tread carefully with it, even though Olney's lesions have never been demonstrated to form from oral administration in rats.

I would say your friend is probably safe if it is like every 2-4 months that he does it. But really, from what I understand ketamine is similar, safer, more available, and cheaper than PCP. And consider the half life of 7 - 46 hours, would you really want to have 1/3 the dose you took Friday night still in your system when you show up to work Monday morning? If this guy wants an nmda antagonist he should go with DXM or ketamine. DXM might be the safer if the two by a bit, but I have heard it is also less subjectively similar.

 

[Legerity]

I feel that the risks of PCP have been exaggerated, everybody seems to be terrified of it. People can run into problems with any substance if used excessively, or if they just don't react well to it.

I used to use PCP when the opportunity would present itself, and some of my friends were quite fond of it. It's very strong so it's easy to take too much and become a mess, but I've never really had any difficult experiences on it. One of my friends did have some sort of psychotic break one night after we combined PCP/mushrooms, but I don't think he was particularly stable to begin with.

So sure there are risks if your friend is going to use it, but if he is using it moderately then I'm not sure there is more reason to worry about PCP than some other drug.