ABSTRACT
In April, 1976, one of the authors of this book was working as a drug chemist with what was then called the Virginia Bureau of Forensic Sciences. The Arlington County Virginia Police Department received a tip that some people were manufacturing drugs in a subdivision home in the county. The tip came from a neighbor who saw several suspicious-looking people carting boxes and drums of what appeared to be chemicals into the house. The police department, in cooperation with U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents, staked out the house to see whether further activity was taking place. They ascertained that the inhabitants were probably making PCP (phencyclidine, sometimes called “angel dust”). The police department narcotics agents contacted the Virginia lab and asked for a chemist to help them ascertain how far the PCP preparation had gone. It was proposed that one of the agents along with the chemist (the author of this book) would walk slowly by the house and sniff the air. The idea was that an odor of benzene and/or ethyl ether would indicate that the clandestine drug manufacturers would be in the last step of the synthesis of the PCP. In prosecuting drug manufacturers, it is much easier for the prosecution if the target drug is actually present. It is much easier to prosecute someone for “manufacture” of an illicit drug than it is for “attempted manufacture.” As a result of this reconnoiter, the police and DEA raided the house and uncovered a major clandestine PCP lab. The entire floor of the two-car garage was covered with six inches of parsley, and the PCP had been dissolved in camp stove fuel and poured on the parsley. Had the house not been raided, the fuel would have been allowed to evaporate and the PCP treated parsley (called “wobble weed” on the street), would have been bagged and sold for smoking. The narcotics agents estimated the haul to be worth more than $1M.
