3 ARRESTED IN BUST AT LARGE PCP LAB

TAMPA - Federal authorities have uncovered what they believe is one of the
largest PCP labs in Florida.

The lab was found Wednesday in a rented house in Tampa. Drug Enforcement
Administration agents discovered 15 buckets of chemicals 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," he 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.

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.