Posted on 06/14/2004 9:04:21 PM PDT by neverdem
DENVER - Tammy Quist, principal of Fairview High School in Boulder, was not surprised when she learned in April that a student was in a coma after overdosing on an over-the-counter cold medicine.
"It's out there, and you know kids do it," Ms. Quist said. "It's cheap, accessible and it's not illegal if kids get caught. And it usually goes unnoticed until a kid takes too much or combines it with something to get a horrible reaction and overdoses."
Cough and cold medications containing dextromethorphan, or DXM, are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers and young adults looking for a cheap high, experts say.
There are no national statistics that track fatalities from cough and cold medications. But reports of overdoses of the drugs have doubled in the last four years, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers' Toxic Exposure Surveillance System. In 2000, poison-control centers across the country had 2,523 calls about the abuse and misuse of DXM, and 1,623 of those calls involved teenagers. By last year, that total had risen, to 4,382, with 3,271 involving teenagers.
These figures, said Dr. Alvin C. Bronstein, medical director for the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center in Denver, are probably an underestimate.
"There is lack of awareness and easy access to these medications," Dr. Bronstein said. "Parents need to be more aware because a box of cough preparation wouldn't look that sinister."
The problem has caused some drugstores to put cough and cold medications that contain DXM behind the counter, where they are less accessible. Three states - California, New York and New Jersey - introduced legislation this year to prohibit sales to minors of products containing DXM, or to restrict the quantities that are sold. The issue of banning bulk sales will be taken up by the American Medical Association at a meeting in Chicago this week.
At the same time, some manufacturers have increased the package size of products with DXM to make them harder to shoplift.
"We have undertaken a variety of steps to educate parents, teens and schools," said Julie Lux, a spokeswoman for the Schering-Plough Corporation in Berkeley Heights, N.J., which manufactures Coricidin and other products that contain DXM.
Dextromethorphan is an ingredient in more than 125 nonprescription cough and cold medications, including forms of Robitussin, Coricidin and Vicks. It suppresses coughs by reducing sensitivity in the part of the brain that controls the cough reflex.
Officials at the Consumer Healthcare Products Association in Washington, the trade group that represents Schering-Plough and other manufacturers of over-the-counter medications, say dextromethorphan is not an addictive substance and does not produce a chemical dependence.
Experts say DXM is safe in the 15- to 30-milligram doses recommended for treating coughs or colds. But in the large doses, 100 milligrams or more, typically taken by recreational users, it can cause hallucinations and feelings of unreality. It also carries a risk of high fever, seizures and other serious adverse reactions. Teenagers sometimes refer to dextromethorphan products as Skittles, Red Devils, Robo or Triple C's. The high that the drugs produce is called "robotripping" or "skittling."
Alex M., a 17-year-old high school student, said DXM gave him a feeling of being outside his body. "I like to use it with meditations," he said. "It's just interesting for self-discovery."
He has also used the drugs at parties, where, he said, "It's more something to end the evening."
But Alex's experimentation was halted when his father, John, discovered a stash of pure DXM he had purchased online. "We have had long discussions about the side effects," his father said.
No one is sure what lies behind the recent jump in overdoses from DXM. One theory is that people who abuse it are mixing it, either inadvertently or intentionally, with other drugs, like antidepressants and antihistamines, the interaction increasing the risk of overdose and death.
The Internet may also have a role. A quick search on Google brings up dozens of sites describing how to get high on dextromethorphan. "Some of these sites will tell kids exactly how many drops of something they need to take in order to get high," said Ms. Quist, the principal.
Other Web sites warn about the risks of DXM; some include first-person accounts by former users, with photographs of teenagers vomiting the cough syrup before the high kicks in.
Some experts believe the current enthusiasm for abusing cold and cough medicines will not last.
"DXM had some experimentation in the 1960's and it died out," said Dr. Andrea G. Barthwell, deputy director for demand reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "This seems to be another blip on the radar screen. It's unlikely it will catch on in a significant way."
Ms. Quist sent a letter to parents outlining the signs of DXM abuse, which include confusion, impaired judgment, blurred vision, dizziness, paranoia, excessive sweating, slurred speech, nausea and vomiting. Most parents, she added, said they were unaware of the problem.
In the letter, Ms. Quist recommended that parents keep medications containing the ingredient in places that are not easily accessible and avoid keeping large quantities of such medications in the house.
The boy who overdosed in April, Ms. Quist said, has emerged from his coma, but she refused to comment further on his condition. Also this spring, a 20-year-old man from Arvada died from a Coricidin overdose.
In some cases, overdoses and deaths have occurred when parents or guardians have given cough or cold medications to very small children in inappropriate doses.
In May, a Colorado man pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide for causing the deaths of his two children after giving them adult cherry-flavored cough and cold medicine.
"The labels clearly state how you shouldn't use these products, and that's the first line of defense," said Tom Sanford, a spokesman for Pfizer's consumer health care unit in Morris Plains, N.J. Pfizer makes Benadryl and many other cough and cold medicines. "People need to understand this is serious medicine."
During a period of experimentation with psuedo-scientific self-justification, myself and a few numbnuts discovered a book that in some slight way alluded to the fact that certain types of morning glory seeds might, just might contain a hallucinogenic alkaloid.
Well heck Jim!..off we trotted to the plant stores, yes stores-we decimated the entire stock of the 2 types in the whole county, and bought the seeds.
It seems that these seeds were coated with a noxious, but supposedly non-toxic chemical. Well this just proved to us that we were on to something. So we improvised methods of washing the seeds and making different strength 'Seed Smoothies' in the ol' blender.
Did it work?Well...yes...if you didn't mind getting sick as hell, throwing up and then feeling like you just drank 12 beers real quick. And of course we didn't.
So, yes, there are 2 types of morning glory seeds that do contain a slight hallucinogenic alkaloid, but trust me. Beer is better.
DXM?Isn't that a rapper???
Great. Now another product they'll put behind the counter so I can wait for a surly pharmacist to fetch it for me....
There have always been dangerous drugs on the market, but the AMA wants us to believe that this is not so and that we need more laws to keep people from abusing these drugs.
Just ain't so. The AMA should be abolished. They really think they are gods.
If it weren't for the AMA, we could have cheap medicine, at market value, and not have to quiver over every insane price increase of our health care insurance.
I no people who've done this. They said it sucked and that they would never do it again. Apparently there are much more pleasant ways to get loaded.
A quick search on Google brings up dozens of sites describing how to get high on dextromethorphan. "Some of these sites will tell kids exactly how many drops of something they need to take in order to get high," said Ms. Quist, the principal.
This site is among them to discuss the types of trips and relative doses (no precise measurements):
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/1762.html
Call it Jaggermeister and the kids can't wait to gulp it down by the shot.
*bonk*
Feh...
It's the NY Slimes. I should have known.
You know it, I know it, and hopefully someday the populous will know it, that it is nothing but a political agenda to place ALL health care in the hands of the Fed's.(PERIOD)
Okay, NOW I'm convinced that someone is spiking my lemonade every year when I go to the "We Fest"!
I swear I will throttle someone if they take it off the market. It's a great cold medicine
They have the Sudafed currently stashed behind pharmacy counters. As if that will stop anything.
There was also nutmeg. Of course, I wouldn't know but I heard of some people ingesting common ground nutmeg for the same effect as those two specific types of morning glory seeds. Some even said it worked, if you could manage to take a quarter ounce or more. Then some smartaleck kid came up with the idea of putting it in empty 00 gelatin capsules ....
BTW, "The Wind Cries Mary", by Hendrix .... haunting -- the music, the lyrics, and especially that last verse (some of it in your tag-line). It's one of my favorites of his songs.
Ha ha. And does it have the capacity to affect brain function?
Au contraire, physician organizations always want a complete drug history including all over the counter medicines and any vitamin, mineral and herbal supplementation. They are quite sensitive to missing any sort of adverse drug reaction or drug - supplement reaction.
Thanks...Hendrix, IMNHO, is as great a poet as he was a musician. Lyrics to WCM are at bottom of my profile page. Spanish Castle Magic is another great poem.(and of course tune)
That's funny... I've got a cold right now and I've been treating it with Robitussin with DXM... so since I'm in lockdown at home anyway, I did some research and lo and behold I found that people were getting high with it.
The sudafed is stashed because it is easily converted into amphetamine.
Way back when we used Robitussin.
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