DRUG DELIVERS STRONG KICK: SMOKES WITH FORMALDEHYDE ALSO HAVE PCP

The 3 a.m. phone call that her son was in trouble was enough to cause
Rhonda Jones to panic and rush to his aid. But when she found her son, she
said, what she saw was beyond belief.

The 23-year-old was yelling and incoherent in the back seat of a police
cruiser, accused of attacking two officers without warning, wrestling a gun
from one and shooting him in the chest.

Leonard Jones had been smoking what is known among Dallas drug users as
"water," "wack" and "sherm," Ms. Jones said.

Many who smoke the substance on cigarettes or with marijuana believe it is
dried formaldehyde or embalming fluid, but studies have found that the
substance frequently contains PCP, a powerful hallucinogen.

The concoction is experiencing a resurgence in Dallas and in cities across
the country, and police say the erratic hallucinations it provokes in some
users are behind Mr. Jones' attack and another that occurred hours earlier.

Dealers of the drug sell small vials of the clear, thick liquid or
presoaked, dried individual cigarettes or marijuana.

According to police reports, Mr. Jones attacked two officers about 3 a.m.
Feb. 22 as they were sitting in a police car completing paperwork in the
100 block of Pemberton Hill Road in southeast DallasMr. Jones, who weighs
130 pounds, fought fiercely with police, unfazed by direct charges of
pepper spray to his mouth and blows from the officers' batons, police said.
Eight officers were required before he was finally restrained, supervisors
said. The officer who was shot escaped serious injury because he was
wearing a bulletproof vest.

"He was stronger than normal and acting like something was wrong," Ms.
Jones said. "He said he doesn't remember anything that happened. He just
woke up and he was in jail."

Dr. Daniel Keys, chief toxicologist at University of Texas Southwestern
Medical School at Dallas, said the behavior described in Mr. Jones' arrest
was more likely caused by a combination of PCP and formaldehyde. Smoking
formaldehyde alone would not cause such unpredictable behavior, he said.

Phencyclidine, or PCP, was once used as an anesthetic for humans but was
discontinued in the 1950s because it caused patients to become agitated and
disoriented. Its use as an animal tranquilizer was discontinued in 1979,
according to a Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse report. The drug
is now manufactured in clandestine labs.

Dallas officers working overnight patrol shifts say the increasing use of
the substance places extra concern on every dispatch they answer. Patrol
officers frequently swap stories of people disrobing or exhibiting
extraordinary fierceness during fights.

"These people get high and you cannot stop them - all rationale is out the
window," said Lt. Charles Epperson, a 24-year department veteran. "I can
encounter someone who is on a rock of crack cocaine and I can handle that
person. These people lose control of their physical and mental facilities -
they're just a wild person."

On the same night as the shooting and about a mile away, two other officers
were attacked without warning by a nude man. The man - who police believe
was high on drugs - began pounding on the police car when the officers
drove up, and he threatened to kill them. As the officers struggled to
restrain him, the man bit one of the officers on the neck.

"They didn't even say, 'Hello, how are you,' he just ran up to them," Lt.
Epperson said.

Officers have noticed an increase in the popularity of marijuana, in part
because it is more potent when soaked with other chemicals, Lt. Epperson
said. For those who can't afford to mix the substance with marijuana, some
convenience stores sell individual cigarettes - although the practice is
illegal - for 25 cents apiece.

"We're having more people becoming deeper involved," Lt. Epperson said.
"We've just started to encounter a bunch of them. It's become more of a
common occurrence than a rarity. It's scary."

While drug dealing goes on in the open in pockets of southeast Dallas,
investigators say, the trade attracts customers from all over Dallas, as
well as the suburbs and nearby counties.

Bill Elwood, who conducted a study of adolescent drug users in Houston for
the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, found that the young drug
users who smoked the liquid drug - known in Houston as "fry" - generally
thought they were consuming formaldehyde or embalming fluid. Lab analysis
that he performed on samples found that it also contained PCP.

"That is the scary part of the problem," he said. "So many of the folks I
interviewed did not realize they were consuming PCP. When they completely
freak out, it's not like they saw colors and took a happy trip. These were
serious hallucinations."

Formaldehyde is commonly used in the funeral industry to embalm bodies.
Although the chemical is not a controlled substance, John Firestone, chief
executive officer of Pierce Chemical, a major supplier of the chemical,
said his company sells the substance only to licensed funeral homes and
medical facilities.

Police investigators in Dallas have not determined where drug dealers get
their supply of embalming fluid, but they believe the substance is either
purchased from chemical companies or funeral homes or stolen.

Gonzalez Funeral Home owner Al Gonzalez said he has heard of people abusing
the chemical. He said he occasionally receives requests to sell some. Some
seek the chemical because they believe it will harden fingernails, but he
said most requests are suspicious.

"They say it's for their fingernails, but I always suspect they want it for
something else," he said.

Part of its popularity may be what Mr. Elwood said is a cyclical nature of
drug popularity. Like fashion and music, the use of different drugs comes
and goes.

"Young people never want to do what their parents or the previous
generation did," Mr. Elwood said. "Whether it's music or clothes or what
have you. Part of the attraction of fry is it's different. There's
something to the idea of each generation having their own high."