Investigators made one of the largest-ever seizures of liquid phencyclidine, often called PCP, in Bradley County, Tenn., last week on Interstate 75.
The toxic drug was found in a cooler in the back of a car when 10th Judicial Drug Task Force agents stopped the driver, a news release states.
PCP in a liquid form is very rare and hardly ever seen in the Southeast Tennessee region, task force director Steve Lawson said. Powder PCP used to be popular in the 1970s and ’80s, but the drug went away, he said.
Tommy Farmer, head of the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force, said liquid PCP has a street value of about $450 an ounce, making the seizure about $54,000 worth of PCP.
When agents first stopped 46-year-old Jamie Johnson, of Compton, Calif., on July 26 when he was driving on I-75 with no headlights at about 8:30 p.m., they didn’t know what they had found, task force spokeswoman Sabrena Townsend said in a news release.
Johnson told agents he had been taking drugs, and when they searched the car they found a cooler packed with 10 12-ounce Gatorade bottles filled with a liquid substance later identified as PCP, Townsend said.
But when the bottles were opened, fumes poured out and burned one of the agents.
“They didn’t have any idea what they were dealing with,” Lawson said.
An ambulance had to take the agent to the hospital, and the agent was kept overnight. He was released the next day.
Johnson, arrested that same night, now is in federal custody on charges of conspiracy to deliver PCP, Townsend said.
State warrants have been issued for Johnson for possession of PCP for resale and reckless endangerment, she said.