Teens using over-counter cough syrup to get high

Gannett News Service ^ | 12/30/03

[Holly_P]

Robitussin and Coricidin are becoming popular recreational drugs nationwide with at least five deaths reported in the past two years, but Tucson drugstores and doctors say they see no problem here.

Emergency rooms and schools across the nation are reporting that waves of youths are overdosing on nonprescription cough and cold medicines widely available in drugstores and supermarkets. The dozens of overdoses in the past two years - including at least five deaths in which the abuse of over-the-counter medicines was a factor - reflect how medicines such as Robitussin and Coricidin are becoming more popular as recreational drugs for kids as young as 12, police and doctors say.

[max_rpf]

I saw a guy in HS strip naked in a snow storm and scratch most of the skin off his back on this stuff. It can be very powerful...

[farmfriend]

Those that want to will find a way.

[Pikachu_Dad]

My 4 year old nephew got high on this stuff. The doctor accidentally prescribed the adult dosage for the cough syrup instead of the childs dosage.

While researching the medication, I found this drug abusers web site.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm.shtml

[MattAMiller]

They called it Roboing when I was in High School.

[xrp]

Quick! We better outlaw all this stuff!

[DefCon]

Next thing you know, they'll be sniffing model airplane glue.

[speedy]

Right you are. Somewhere out there is a kid experimenting with Pepto-Bismol and Vick's Vapo-Rub.

[whereasandsoforth]

News: Two people die in a pool of water not prescribed by doctor! Two others die from heart ailments not recognized by the AMA. More to follow...

[SShultz460]

We used to do this 10 years ago...called it RoboTripping

[DBrow]

Coricidin is quite toxic in large doses! There have been lots of health problems from this "cold medicine" used as a legal high. If you are a parent you should learn about this and teach your kids what the risks are.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=5903

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=20821

DXM has been a "recreational drug" for some time now; there are websites where you can purchase Dextromethorphan in gram quantities. It is exempt from narcotics scheduling by law. People get in trouble when they try OTC preparations in doses high enough to cause the mental effects they are looking for.

Not a safe drug, worth knowing the details because it is so easy to get ahold of.

[Hacksaw]

Quick! We better outlaw all this stuff!

Hmmm - it's legal and people still abuse it. Looks like that angle of legalization is a non starter.

[DallasMike]

...when taken in heavy doses can produce hallucinations and a loss of motor control, much as PCP does.

Call me a stick-in-the-mud but being paralyzed and seeing huge purple spiders crawling on the wall just doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

[JoJo Gunn]

There was a kid back in the mid '70's we called "Romilar"....

[tet68]

Romilar and Estidil EC but you can't get that anymore,
we used to get Turpin hydrates from the sick bay.
Now if you really want to catch a buzz, get Renalginized
serious abusers drink nose drops.

Oops it's so easy to remember when you're straight.
Don't even drink beer any more.

Mankind will ALWAYS find a way to warp reality.

Hmmm feeling kinda sniffly, better go slug down some Nyquill, now what did I do with that duct tape?

[Dont Mention the War]

The acetaminophen alone in the cough syrup could blow out your liver, though anyone taking that much Coricidin would have far more immediate problems. PCP and ketamine is some of the nastiest stuff out there, so to get high on drugs that produce similar results is not the smartest idea in the world.

On a different tangent, I have to give a virtual smack to the author of this article for his or her complete lie that this is a new phenomenon.

[WackyKat]

I like to go out in the yard and spin around in circles while breathing real fast.

Man, what a high!

I heard the feds are setting up a "task force" to go after dopers like me, though

It seems some children are getting "hooked" on the "stuff", too

[Dont Mention the War]

Romilar and Estidil EC but you can't get that anymore, we used to get Turpin hydrates from the sick bay. Now if you really want to catch a buzz, get Renalginized

I've never heard of any of that stuff! How old are those drugs?

serious abusers drink nose drops.

Regular decongestant nose spray?

I have to admit I would have liked, just once, to have seen what the big deal was about Quaaludes.

[IndependentSouthernDemocrat]

We did a lot of robo during AIT while I was in the Army because beer and liqour was almost impossible to get. I recall trippin' on it, but also remember the miserable aftermaths. A good friend of mine from the Bronx introduced me and several others to robotrippin'. We all quit this after beer became more accessible. This is something that I do not reccomend to anyone else.

[boris]

This is not new; I encountered sites about Robitussin DM and "how to chug" sufficient quantities several years ago. Unfortunately the dose that gives "the effect" is very close to the fatal dose. Darwinism in action.

[boris]

"Tucson drugstores and doctors report no problems with the drugs, but nationwide the incidents represent a dangerous turn from past decades, when some youths would guzzle cough syrup to try to get a buzz from alcohol and codeine"

The reported effect of high doses of dextromethorphan is an "out of body" experience; one loses contact with one's physical (corporeal) self. Why someone would wish to do so is open to conjecture.

--Boris

[JSteff]

I wonder how much of this is just a self suggestion effect? You know, acting crazier than they would be just because it is a "bad"/"cool" thing to do.

Once in high school a guy had these rubbery green pills. Another kid saw the bottle in the kids locker. He ask what they where.. the kid with the pills said the other one didn't want to take them... they might do weird things to him. The other kid said he wanted them and bugged the kid with the pills to give him a couple.

So the kid gave him some... but said to wait to take them until after school. They went to their next classes, but the other kid (who thought he was really "cool" and "in" with things...) took them right after they parted.

Two or three classes later they ran into each other again and the kid who took the pill said he could "hardly keep it together he was like, soooo spaced".... "everything was cracking him up"..."he was sooo out of it".

The guy who gave him the pill looked real shocked and then said he told him not to take it, that it was really a toilet bowl cleaner! He left for his next class after shaking his head and saying how sick the kid was going to get. A few minutes later the loud speaker paged for the kid who gave out the pill to come immediately to the deans office. So he goes down and laying on the couch in the office is the kid with vomit all over his shirt and in the bucket beside the couch. The nurse was beside him patting his head with a damp cloth.

The kid who gave the pill out started laughing and the dean (a male) pulled him in another room. An started telling him about "how he was going to jail and that kid could die... it was no laughing matter and he needed to tell him exactly what he gave that kid!"

The kid who gave the pill said it was just some---- vitamin E pills, and then took the dean to his locker to show him the pill bottle. The dean got a bit of a smile, suppressed a laugh then suspended him for two days. The kid who got "high", then sick, barely lived it down.

But all of it was just self suggestion, I wonder if alot of the cough syrup thing is like that. Did you ever see the ingredients? There is barely enough of anything to get you really "high".

My little brother (20 years++ ago) drank almost a full large bottle of the stuff. When my mom called the doctor he said that not to really worry but that my brother would be a bit "odd" for a while and then would probably sleep for 8 - 12 hours. That is how it happened. Minimal effect on a 6 year old. What can it possibly do to a high school kid?

[Squantos]

Uncle Sugar used to issue a Cold Pack to servicemen that included aspirn, throat lozenges, codine cough syrup upon request pretty much.

Lots of troops would request those cold packs with the standard I hab a Coud..sniff sniff cough cough wheeeeeeeeze !! Usually right before pay day when beer money was short. They'd take their last dollar to the PX/BX and buy a sack of tootsie pops and dip the candy tootsie pops into the almost (back then) pure codine. Poor boy high for the poor GI. Been goin on for a looooong time till SOP was changed at the out patient clinics on DOD sites.

Stay Safe !

[WackyKat]

That is a very interesting story

It is amazing how powerful the placebo effect is

[tubebender]

Bump...

[Husker24]

I have a solution for this problem, make that stuff taste like Niquel, that stuff taste abhorrent.

[nmh]

"Those that want to will find a way."

No doubt about that!

[nmh]

"Those that want to will find a way."

No doubt about that!

[nmh]

"My 4 year old nephew got high on this stuff. The doctor accidentally prescribed the adult dosage for the cough syrup instead of the childs dosage. "

You've got to be kidding me! What's with the PARENTS? Are they illiterate? All they have to do is READ what's on the box it came in! Surely you can't blame the DOCTOR for this. Honestly, are they robots or something? Unable to THINK?

[nmh]

Quaaludes were hot in my time. They weren't a big deal. Trust me ... .

[tet68]

I've never heard of any of that stuff! How old are those drugs?

Early 60s.

Renalgin was some kind of nose drop, don't even know if they called them decongestants in those days.
Go to the drug store, buy a bottle and toss it back, saame
as the cough syrup, heck it was like going into a wine store, Roburtussn......cheap but no kick, Romilar more expensive but smoooooooooth.

Qualudes, another kettle of fish, I have vague memories of dancing around in some womans underware with a lamp shade on my head but I could be wrong.
Serious lude heads you could tell because their hands kinda shook. Knew a very pretty girl who was serious into them, she wrecked her car and scared her face bad.
She paid a heavy price to learn but it could have been worse.

Now I'm drug free for 7 years, no wine, beer etc.
I'm not a lot of fun at parties, but then I don't go to any.

[tet68]

make that stuff taste like Niquel, that stuff taste abhorrent.

That's what the duct tape is for silly!

Toss it back, slap on a strip of Duct tape and you can keep it down, simple really.

[JSteff]

Yeah and it is true. It was really funny at the time.

The kid with the Vitamin E is now a district justice and a family friend.

[thoughtomator]

This doesn't bode well for the War on Drugs fanatics. Are we going to make medicine illegal to prevent people from getting high in unauthorized ways? (Oops! We already have)

[Orangedog]

Hmmm feeling kinda sniffly, better go slug down some Nyquill...

When I was in college I was at a party where we made a drink we called the Grizzly-gator...Gatorade, vodka and Nyquil. The party didn't last long after the first and only two rounds of that concoction.

Nyquil: the coughing, aching, stuffy-head, fever, how the hell did I end up on the kitchen floor medicine.

[Orangedog]

I like to go out in the yard and spin around in circles while breathing real fast.

Man, what a high!

I'm surprised that some pin-head researcher in search of a government grant to study kids that like to do that to see if those kids are more likely to become drug abusers.

[Trampled by Lambs]

The bithing about "ludes" was, you could get nearly any woman to do nearly anything once they'd had one. (Not that I have any personal experience, ya know...).

[Orangedog]

I have to admit I would have liked, just once, to have seen what the big deal was about Quaaludes.

I was a teenager in the 1980's and back then ludes were something we all knew about but hardly anyone had ever actually seen, let alone taken.

[Trampled by Lambs]

er, "big thing" (keyboard acting up)

[I still care]

Whenever I get sick a dose of Nyquil is by far the best thing I have ever used. It really does give you a night's rest.

If those nannies over at the FDA ever outlaw it I will be royally ticked.

[Mo1]

Robitussin and Coricidin are becoming popular recreational drugs nationwide with at least five deaths reported in the past two years, but Tucson drugstores and doctors say they see no problem here.

I'm still trying to figure out if this is a step up or a step down from teens sniffing brake fluid?

What the heck is wrong with teenagers .. or am I just getting that old?

[radiohead]

..when taken in heavy doses can produce hallucinations and a loss of motor control, much as PCP does.

Call me a stick-in-the-mud but being paralyzed and seeing huge purple spiders crawling on the wall just doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

It isn't. My son had the flu, was self-medicating and apparently chugging the stuff instead of using a spoon. Next thing I know he's begging me to call an ambulance because he thought he couldn't move. Of course, the fact that he came stumbling into my room crying that he couldn't move was an indication that something else was going on here. Can someone tell me why kids, even grown kids, pick midnight to decide that they're sick???

When I looked it up on the net, I was surprised to find a whole underground culture that does this stuff. Nasty.

[Eska]

I taught at a native village where cough syrup abuse was rampant. Kids would throw up in waste can about everyday. At first I didn't remember that codiene all the GI's bought in korean drugstores; but then I realized, everything being red they were upchucking.

Feds build a clinic in every native village and native health care people just gave this stuff out like candy to babies. Not all villages are this way though. In some though, the clinic is dope headquarters; and hard to believe it was all done with fed money

[HiTech RedNeck]

and scratch most of the skin off his back

Some reach.

[HiTech RedNeck]

and apparently chugging the stuff instead of using a spoon

I can't believe the margin between therapeutic and seriously toxic dose is that small. Most nonprescription medications have at least a factor of 10. Tylenol being one of the worst.

[Qatar-6]

Trip down memory lane Squantos

Troops used to call it a "Robobuzz"

And then there was the cough syrup in Korea.....

People will always find a way.

All the best

Qatar-6

[fourdeuce82d]

how much of this is just a self suggestion effect

don't know the dosages that obtain in todays preparation- back in the 70s you could get straight DXM in tablet form OTC. I would most certainly produce visual distortions- looked like the ceiling/walls/floor were made of rubber, and had beach balls rolling around beneath them.

The puking/hangover of death thing sucked...that and the feeling that your had put a sprain on your brain.

[Squantos]

LOL......Don't forget the russian firewater (Ficora di Russia I think) in Italy too. That was great stuff till the whizz quiz crew pissed on it's opium base that no one knew about......And the Bathtub hootch called Sediki in Qatar. Now I "know" ya heard about that ! It was funny to watch folks buy sugar, yeast, and juice at the souks ! The clerks would look around like they were selling illegal drugs or something when one bought a shopping cart of all three items at once. But then they got flogged with a cane when they were involved in moonshine ops......we just got foggy brains ...... Funny times.....:o)

Merry New Year Sir !

[max_rpf]

Treebark. It was really scary.

[Pikachu_Dad]

"You've got to be kidding me! What's with the PARENTS? Are they illiterate? All they have to do is READ what's on the box it came in! Surely you can't blame the DOCTOR for this. Honestly, are they robots or something? Unable to THINK?"

Yes, I can blame the doctor. It was a prescription, and the printed label specified the dose.