'Mad Max' and cough syrup link explored

Sunday, August 28, 2005


Most of us can’t imagine taking dozens of cold and cough tablets or chugging a bottle of Robitussen just to get high.

But for some teens, those over-the-counter medications are a cheap and easily accessible answer.

Though the greater Lynchburg area is not seeing a rise in the abuse of over-the-counter medication by teens, the effects onthose who do use can be serious.

A Campbell County teenager accused of committing two break-ins, a rape and a beating told authorities he had consumed Coricidin HBP, an over-the-counter cold medicine, during the nights of the incidents.

The perpetrator called himself “Mad Max” during the attacks and told his victims that “this is what I do.”

Shay William Ward, who was 17 at the time of the incidents in late April and early May, said he had taken the medication and gone for a walk, but could only remember bits and pieces of the evening, investigators testified in court earlier this month.

Abuse of over-the-counter medications by teens prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning in May about the abuse of dextromethorphan (DXM), a synthetically produced ingredient found in many over-the-counter cough and cold remedies.

The abuse is widespread enough to prompt some Walgreens and CVS stores to restrict the sale of Coricidin.

Lynchburg is no exception. The Timberlake Road Walgreens, for example, only lets customers buy a single pack at a time from the pharmacy.

One Web site, www.coricidin.org, is devoted to educating people about the dangers of abusing Coricidin, spotlighting more than a dozen violent crimes and suicides committed across the country by people while under the influence of the drug.

Robert F. Golaszewski, who maintains the site, said that Coricidin is different and much more dangerous than the high-inducing element - DXM - it contains.

In addition to DXM, Coricidin also contains chlorpheniramine maleate. This is a class of drug that in general is very dangerous to take in large doses with DXM, the site states.

Worse yet, that drug is also metabolized by the same liver enzyme as is DXM.

The competition for this limited enzyme by the two drugs makes taking them together, in large doses, a dangerous combination, the site states.

Golaszewski points out that DXM has been around since the 1960s, it’s just gotten more attention recently. Coricidin, in particular, has become popular because of its pill form, as opposed to cough syrup.

The abuse of the drug has multiple physical and psychological effects.

Using Coricidin and any other drug in excess or in combination with other drugs can cause blackouts, said Sharon Wood, the project manager with the substance abuse and mental health services administration at Central Virginia Community Services, which works with the state department to provide local programs, including substance abuse.

“A person can have blackouts when they can’t remember specific periods. They may remember up to a certain time and not anything after. My own personal experience is that not a lot remember bits and pieces, they just don’t remember periods of time,” she said.

Physically, the drug can cause serious liver and kidney damage because the drugs are filtered through those organs, Wood said.

The drugs can also affect a person’s memory, concentration and cause mood swings, restlessness, disturbances in sleep and eating patterns, she said.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the psychological effects of abusing medications containing DXM vary depending on the amount taken, but they can range from depressant and mild hallucinogenic effects to a sense of complete dissociation from one’s body.

Nicknamed “Triple C” or “Skittles” because of its size and red color, the medications are popular among teens for several reasons, the top being that they’re easily accessible, some as close as their parents’ medicine cabinet.

The Internet has also encouraged the drug’s popularity with the creation of Web sites that explain how to use the drug and give recipes for mixing the medication with other drugs, such as Robitussen, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.

Even media stories that seek to raise awareness of the dangers of using the drug also pique teens’ interest.

“A lot of people didn’t know how to do it until someone told them how not to do it,” Wood said.

But there are often warning signs before the drug use gets serious, she said.

Wood said parents should look for changes in their child’s behavior such as their eating and sleeping habits, what kinds of friends they’re hanging out with, school performance, attitudes at home and at school and if they’re becoming more isolative and irritable.

“A lot of times they see the values go down - stealing, lying, fighting, the rudeness, the intimidation, aggressiveness - that they may not have seen in this child,” Wood said.

“The values have been taken over by the drug. Things they normally would not have done they’re now are able to do and not have a lot of guilt about it.”

For a variety of reasons, a lot of parents don’t want to face the facts that their child may be using drugs, Wood said.

“I think sometimes it’s their own fears that they haven’t been good enough parents. We brush it off,” she said.

“Sometimes there’s a history of addiction in the family, so it’s a right-of-passage type thing and we ignore it.”

Parents also may not realize that the drugs of today are much stronger than they were 10 or 20 years ago, Wood said.

Others parents may be too busy, embarrassed or unsure of where to go to get their teen help.

“Parents need to follow through. If their child is using, go and get them help while they still can instead of waiting until something serious happens, like this case,” she said.


http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satelli...784715881&path=

[rfgdxm]

http://www.dextroverse.org/forums/index.ph...&f=4&t=23942&s=

There is already an active thread about this in the DXM discussion forum.

[$H@P3$HYFTR3]

this shits ridiculous. now theres ccc heads raping grandmas at crowbar point? just drink a sizzyrp. fuckin assholez, eh? notice now every single article has essentially the same elements: kid does something fukt, usually on ccc, the media blamez it on dxm, there are methods to tell if your kids are on the shit, and others. fuck em. if you see a ccc head, push em down the stairs so they cant wreak more havok on the scene. never mind. theyll just blame THAT on dxm too. fuckers...

[$H@P3$HYFTR3]

Most of us can’t imagine taking dozens of cold and cough tablets or chugging a bottle of Robitussen just to get high? bullshit. i can. and i think you can too. how can you have such a shitty imagination if you cant even imagine whats being said by your own mouth? maybe you need to imagine yourself down to the cough aisle and imagine yourself a tussin. then you can see whats up . NUCKA!

[Poss]

I can relate to that kid, mixing dxm and any kind of antihystamine is a very bad idea, you loose control of your consience, the voice inside your head (YOU, your reasoning) is gone. And when you look back at it, If you can, it is very disturbing. I made a post about this a long time ago, I think its still linked in my live jourlnal, well I couldnt find it but I'l paste it here.

First time I dexed i did 354mg, second time 708mg, my second time I had an INCREDIBLE trip, almost like E I was in love with everyone, I was seeing the world through new eyes . Third trip 708mg + 100mg Mepredine (demerol) snorted. I passed out and woke up with my stomach cramping like I had been hit in the stomach with a sledge hammer. I thought I was dying, but I soon remembered that I had taken dex and it was just pretty bad nausea, or my body owning me for mixing a good dose of strong opiates with dex. Moral of the story is, He would be fine with an 8oz Robomax(708mg), gaurantee he would trip good. 
Now for my first experience with 900mg. After dexing mabey 15 times on around 708, I became curious after meeting another member of the DV, I had known him for a decent while when we decided to head to walmart and each get 3 bottles of Robogels. I consumed the 60 pills on an empty stomach, an hour later I was feeling first effects of dex, and a nasty roboitch i hadnt gotten since my first trips. I asked if my friend had any Benadryl to help me with this itch, he brought me back 2 benadryl and I happily swallowed them, now I realy think this was my mistake. I once took 24 benadryl, some of you from aim chat may remember, I was convinced my belly button was busting open. Ever since then I have gotten the effects of 12 benadryl off of 2-3, such as voices and paranoia.
We chilled in his room playing old nintendo games on his computer. Last thing I remember clearly is some kind of robo mario. Thats when I started to trip realy hard and become delerious. Last thing I remember at all, until being startled by "Tom Wilson with the VA State Police" knocking at the door, was expressing to my friend a revalation about god, unfortunatly neither he or I remember what I said. Then Blackness, mabey an hour passed before I can remember anything. I was in a white room, very similar to my friends room. There were to Gothy/Punk looking teenagers sitting on a white bench, dressed all in white, with white hair even, asking me questions. I would answer the best I could, I was extremely confused as to who the hell these people were. After several lines of Questioning they started talking to eachother, trying to decide if they would accept me. I hear a knock at my friends bedroom door and "come too". Somone was knocking at the door, they said they were a cop, ohh god he is going to call the ems, I am very intoxicated to the point of not being able to speak. My friend opens the door and it turns out to be friend B being a dick trying to freak us out, of course he didnt know we were tripping, so cant realy get pissed at him. I went back onto friend A's bed and sat in the corner. I passed out for mabey 10 minutes, when friend A woke me up. I asked him how long I had been asleep, and when the hell friend B got there. I had no recollection of the knock at the door and getting up to see who it was.
Friend A informed me I had been asleep for no more than 15 minutes, and I had gotten up to open the door when friend B got there. Weird, I could have sworn I had been passed out since about 2 hours after ingestion. This is when I got a little freaked out, friend A begins to tell me I had not been asleep at all until B got their, that I had been scareing the shit out of him all night, going from fetal position, to trying to leave his room, to trying to strike him. He told me everytime he would come near me I would back away like he was going to beat the fuck out of me, almost like an animal afraid of humans. The Moral of this one is, dont mix dxm and benadryl, ohh yeah and 200mg makes one HELL of a differance in a trip, definatly go for 700mg before 900mg. 
In closing, drinking cough syrup is not for pussys, but I love pussy and dex, make sense? Hell naw it dont.

As you can see, these drugs CAN be dangerous and uncontrollable when mixed together.