THE DEENEY BEAST: PCP, Not Just For Kicking Out The Back Windows Of Cop Cars Anymore

THE DAILY BEAST: During its heyday in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, PCP was associated with biker gangs and horror stories in the press detailing catastrophically bad trips resulting in mental breakdown and bodily injury. But today, the drug’s spread more closely resembles that of crack-cocaine: poor, inner-city kids looking for an initially affordable, easy-to-obtain high. Philadelphia’s notorious Badlands, primarily a Latin barrio comprised of narrow streets lined with ailing two-story brick row homes, has been the epicenter of the city’s drug trade for decades. Today, the neighborhood is drenched in wet, and the corners where wet sells are some of the city’s most violent. On April 12 a man was repeatedly shot in the chest and stomach, dumped from a car and left for dead on a corner near Westmoreland Street and Rorer, the Badlands hot spot for wet sales. Addicts who cop wet at Westmoreland and Rorer say they sometimes flee the corner at a full sprint as gunshots ring out arbitrarily. MORE