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motaman
old hand

Registered: 12/18/02
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DEA agents find 'huge' PCP lab in Tampa
#1719252 - 07/15/03 07:55 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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http://www.naplesnews.com/03/06/florida/d941983a.htm
DEA agents find 'huge' PCP lab in Tampa
Saturday, June 7, 2003
Associated Press
TAMPA ? Federal authorities have uncovered what they believe is one of the largest PCP labs ever in Florida.
The lab was found Wednesday in a rented house in Tampa. Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered 15 buckets of chemicals inside and some white powder thought to be phencyclidine hydrochloride, officials said.
Agents searched the home after three men were arrested for allegedly trying to buy piperidine, a PCP ingredient. John Cruz, 43, of Tampa, Christopher Michael Zimmitt, 22, of Virginia, and Michael Burpee, 36, of Ocala and Virginia, were indicted Thursday. They pleaded not guilty and were ordered held without bail.
Joe Kilmer, spokesman for the DEA's Miami field division, said the lab could be among the biggest in the state and maybe even the nation.
"This is a huge find," Kilmer said.
Kilmer said the quantity of piperidine seized was enough to make 2 million doses of PCP. If the amount of piperidine had been equal to the other chemicals found during the search, the lab would have been capable of producing "many, many, many millions" of doses, he said.
The lab was discovered after a confidential source told a DEA agent in April that Cruz and two others from Virginia were trying to find piperidine in Tampa, according to a DEA affidavit.
On Monday, an undercover detective posing as a piperidine supplier sold three gallons of the chemical to Burpee in Tampa. All three defendants were arrested, officials said.
Burpee later confessed, saying Zimmitt and Cruz had come to "watch his back," court papers state. If convicted, each defendant could face up to 20 years in federal prison.
PCP was developed in the 1950s as an intravenous anesthetic. Its use in medicine was discontinued in 1965 after it was found that patients often became agitated, delusional and irrational while recovering from its anesthetic effects, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The drug is commonly used in a powder or tablet form and is often snorted, smoked or eaten.
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GGreatOne234
Stranger
Registered: 12/23/99
Posts: 8,946
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Re: DEA agents find 'huge' PCP lab in Tampa [Re: motaman]
#1721546 - 07/16/03 12:43 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Sheez...that's a lot of PCP!!!
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DazedSol
old hand

Registered: 08/01/01
Posts: 1,230
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Re: DEA agents find 'huge' PCP lab in Tampa [Re: motaman]
#1721858 - 07/16/03 02:33 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Doesnt piperidine come from green peppers?
-------------------- Peace, Adam
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monoamine
umask 077(nonefor you)

Registered: 09/06/02
Posts: 3,095
Loc: Jacksonville,FL
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
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Re: DEA agents find 'huge' PCP lab in Tampa [Re: motaman]
#1750224 - 07/26/03 04:56 AM (20 years, 9 months ago) |
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Remember,it's common practice for the DEA to overstate busts to make themselves look good. It's potentially enough piperadine to make 2 million doses.In reality,not even half of that would have been produced.And how much is a "dose"?
-------------------- People think that if you just say the word "hallucinations" it explains everything you want it to explain and eventually whatever it is you can't explain will just go away.It's just a word,it doesn't explain anything... Douglas Adams
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