August 16, 1998

IT’S CHEAP, EASY AND DANGEROUS

When you hold an illy your fingers go numb.

Imagine what it does when you smoke it.

"It’s very dangerous," said Sgt. Frank Violissi of the Middletown Police street crime unit. "It makes you go wild."

Drug experts agree illy is most common in large cities, and that, at $10 for two or three joints, it is a drug used by people of almost any age and race.

Beyond that there is little about illy that is considered standard.

It started as sherm in downtown Los Angeles, said Lt. Al Jackson, officer in charge for the Los Angeles police narcotics division—but the interest was PCP, not formaldehyde. Users could bring their own cigarettes or marijuana, dip it in PCP solutions offered in the city’s notorious Sherm Alley, or buy pre-dipped-and-dried product.

But smoking something soaked in formaldehyde?

"I’ve never heard of that," Jackson said.

It definitely mutated as it crossed the country, said Laura Caperino-Crean, lead poison specialist for the Connecticut Poison Control Center at the University of Connecticut.

Among police departments in central Connecticut’s smaller cities, Middletown police have the most experience with illy. It’s been on that city’s streets for about two years, Violissi said. Narcotics officers elsewhere have less experience with it.

"We’ve heard people tell us they’ve smoked it," said Sgt. Peter Barton, desk sergeant for the Bristol police. "But we haven’t arrested or serviced anyone because of it."

Sgt. Tom Marino, supervisor for the New Britain police narcotics unit, knew less about it, but guessed that if it involved PCP, it may afflict Bridgeport, where the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club makes its local home.

Caperino-Crean said Bridgeport has had less illy problems than Hartford or New Haven, where it’s been a problem for about five years.

The problem has changed in the last three years, though, in part because of the blurring of terms. The East Coast version of sherm is called wet, experts say, with PCP being the attraction. Illy is supposed to refer to marijuana, tea or mint leaves soaked in embalming fluid.

"But there is such inconsistency that people really don’t know the difference between illy and wet. You happen to smoke one or two joints of illy and buy from a different source, and your next batch may be dosed with PCP," said a New Haven narcotics officer.

The effects of PCP, also known as angel dust, are well known: It can convince people they are incredibly strong—and temporarily make them so -- or that they can fly. Its hallucinations sometimes lead to injury, as can the dosage of PCP in wet.

Illy’s effects are less striking. It gives a high, but it is also reported to numb the user, according to Caperino-Crean and New Haven police.

Violissi has also heard of people sleeping up to two days straight after smoking the stuff.

Yale-New Haven Hospital’s emergency room alone gets about two illy crises a month, said Dr. Harry Moscovitz, medical director of the hospital’s Emergency Department. But the figure just illustrates the impossibility of tracking the number of people using illy.

(Ed. note: Goodness, I do hope they weren’t Yalies!)

Poison Control—a statewide center for information—now only gets about one report a month, Caperino-Crean said, a figure that probably results from emergency rooms and police departments becoming less apt to call for advice.