A man reportedly high on PCP fell out of a moving vehicle before being run over by another car. After getting up, the Kansas City, Mo., man allegedly tried to take the 1-month-old baby of a mother and father who had pulled over to help him.
"It looked like he was dead on the road," Sara Morris, the baby's mother, told Fox 4 of the man she saw lying on Interstate 70 in Kansas City Saturday (Sept. 8) afternoon.
After Morris and her husband pulled over to give the man aid, he reportedly got up, opened the back door of their car and repeatedly tried to remove their 1-month-old daughter from her car seat before being restrained.
The baby was unhurt and friends of the crazed man, whose pending charges include attempted child abduction, say that his behavior was motivated by the recent loss of his own daughter, not any desire to harm the baby.
The incident is the third to make headlines in as many weeks in which an adult who was allegedly high on PCP has been accused of victimizing or attempting to victimize a child. Local authorities have linked PCP use with the alleged murder of a 2-year-old in Camden, N.J., on Aug. 22, and with another alleged attack that took place in the same city on Sept. 2 and resulted in the death of a 6-year-old and the hospitalization of a 12-year-old.
But, as Life's Little Mysteries has reported before, scientists have yet to show any direct causal link between PCP use and hostile behavior.
"Despite its reputation in the media as a drug that causes bizarrely violent behavior and gives users superhuman strength, research does not support the idea that PCP itself is the cause of such behavior and strength," the University of Maryland's Center for Substance Abuse and Research (CESAR) states on its website. "Instead, those who experience violent outbursts while under the influence of PCP often have a history of psychosis or antisocial behavior that may or may not be related to their drug abuse."
According to CESAR, phencyclidine, or PCP, acts by disrupting receptors of the neurotransmitter glutamate, which, along with the perception of pain, influences learning, memory and emotion. Its immediate psychological effects, though they vary widely by dose, can include feelings of detachment from reality, distorted perceptions of one's body, grandiose delusions and extreme anxiety.
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