Twenty Year Old's Life "Destroyed" by DXM

[torque]

Over-the-counter high destroys young life
By Chad Frey

Newton, Kansas — Now 20-year-old Jordan Allen will openly admit to using drugs — though his drug of choice might come as a shock to most.

It’s something he very likely can find in your medicine cabinet — or on store shelves. His drug of choice is an ingredient in almost any cold or cough medicine.

“When you do this the first time, you won’t know who you are,” Allen said, “or what you are doing. You won’t be able to write your name on a piece of paper.”

Allen has been getting high using over the counter drugs for about two years — two years that have changed his life forever.

During that two years, he’s been through rehab programs twice, attempted suicide twice, been caught shoplifting and driving under the influence.

Allen said he never touched anything — not even a cigarette or a bottle of booze — until he turned 18. Then he went to college and started getting wild.

He turned to hard drugs, but when the cash ran out, it was time to find a cheap way to get high.

Inexpensive high

Allen and his friends turned to Dextromethorphan, an ingredient in over-the-counter medication.

“This is an inexpensive way to get high,” he said. “The pharmacy is like Christmas for guys like me. I can go there and get handfuls of amazingly powerful drugs.”

Dextromethorphan, commonly called DXM, also goes by the names of CCC, Triple C, Skittles, Robo and Poor Man’s PCP.

The Food and Drug Administration announced concern about the abuse of DXM in 2005.

DXM is a synthetically produced ingredient found in many over-the-counter cough and cold remedies.

“You can get this at convenience stores,” said Jordan’s mother, Terri Allen. “You can get this anywhere.”

‘Scary stuff’

DXM can have long-lasting, devastating effects. Use of DXM can lead to permanent brain damage. Other ingredients in cough suppressants containing DXM can lead to liver damage, increased blood pressure, central nervous system problems and heart issues. According to the Department of Justice, some deaths have been reported from mixing DXM with alcohol.

Jordan started taking the drug while living in Reno County and continued when he moved back to his hometown of Hillsboro.

He’s still taking the drug after he and his mother moved to Newton this month.

“This stuff is scary,” said Chad Gay, school resource officer at Newton High School. “Last year, I had a kid show up at school and one of the teachers brought it to my attention that he wasn’t acting right. He was gone. He couldn’t hardly talk to me. His speech was slurred and his pupils were huge — almost as big as his iris.”

Gay said that student confessed to taking a number of over-the-counter cough suppressant pills. He also said most of the time, kids steal those pills.

Heavy price

As his criminal record will attest, Jordan Allen rarely pays for the pills he takes from the shelves — but those pills and syrups have come with a heavy price.

He was kicked out of college after one year, and with his criminal record, it’s tough to get a job — though right now he is working.

“Unfortunately, it’s in fast food,” Jordan Allen said, “but you have to get started.”

He spent four months homeless — he claims by choice. His mother, Terri Allen, has wavered between kicking him out of the house and taking him back.

“I can’t describe for you the constant battle. ... Last summer, I asked him to leave,” she said. “I couldn’t have him there with my 9-year-old daughter. At one point, he almost burned the house down. ... He was high and didn’t know what he was doing.”

He would eat and take showers at his mother’s home, or a friend’s home — but staying in the house was not an option. Most nights he was in a tent or sleeping on a church roof.

Now, Terri sleeps on the couch in the living room, trying to keep tabs on him by making it harder for him to leave the house.

Her boyfriend, Rick Tole, whom she lived with last year, is still in Hillsboro. Rather than make a move to create a family, the family is splintered.

“When you have a family unit and one chooses not to participate, everyone else has to pick up the slack,” Tole said. “His outlook on life is very flawed. ‘I’m living,’ we get that a lot. ‘I’m kicking it with my buds,’ when most of them are on probation or in jail.”

Derailed mind

Once a college student considering majors in psychology or philosophy, Jordan Allen’s mind can’t seem to stay put anymore.

“My mind is in constant derailment,” Jordan Allen said. “My thoughts go from one thing to the next. If you listen to me think out loud, it wouldn’t make sense. It makes perfect sense to me, but it’s much different than normal people think.”

Jordan Allen claims that started in high school, before he started taking drugs. He believes the drugs amplified what was happening in his thought process, and he could have been treated and stopped it.

“This drug will dumb you down; the brain will shrink,” Terri Allen said. “His reasoning isn’t there; it’s flawed and illogical. His motor skills are not there. His handwriting is gone. In just two years time, he writes like an 80 year-old.”

Jordan Allen walked away from an $18,000 scholarship to art school to stay with his friends but did find three things he enjoyed while enrolled in a junior college.

He enjoyed classes in jazz, psychology and philosophy. Whether any will turn out to be his future remains to be seen.

“Right now, I’m stalling,” Jordan Allen said. “I’d like to enroll in school. I’d like to, someday, teach philosophy.”

The fourth plateau

He said he knows getting clean is necessary to his future, but right now, he’s not staying clean.

He used DMX a week ago — though he said he didn’t take very much. He took two bottles of cough syrup and vomited.

Vomiting hasn’t always stopped him in the past.

“He has sat in his room, picking the pills out of his vomit to take them again,” Terri Allen said.

DXMers refer to four plateaus of highs, based on dose. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration, the first plateau is mild stimulation.

The second is euphoria and hallucinations — a place Jordan Allen has been with his friends. He’s also been to the third level — distorted visual perceptions and loss of motor coordination and the fourth — dissociative sedation.

He and his friends don’t really like the fourth plateau very much — normally using other drugs to “boost the hallucinogenic effect” of DXM.

“At really high levels, you’re basically out on the couch and can’t even move,” Jordan Allen said. “We don’t really like that.”

They’ve done the research to know about drug interactions — actually learning the chemical breakdowns of some drugs.

“Jordan could teach a class on this,” Terri Allen said. “It is scary how much he knows. He’s taught us a lot about this.”

source
Not 100% accurate (shrinking brains?), but I think we all know of cases like this and might even recognize a bit of ourselves. Interesting that the DEA has picked up on the "plateau" description. Be aware, there's a kernel of truth here — dex really can mess you up. But it doesn't have to.

[silentbreedmix]

So, it was college that made him a drug addict because before going he says he never used tobacco or alcohol till he turned 18 and before using DXM, he was doing "harder" drugs till we went broke because of lack of self-control.

Dumbass kids these days

[Ceausescu]

Newton is a small farming community in western Kansas. When I say small, I mean like 3,000.
Thats fucking crazy....just another article.

Dxm use has been real heavy in kansas since the mid 90's. With the lack of any other drugs besides
(primarily) Meth and shit weed, Kids have seemed to always turn to dxm.

Too bad its getting this much attention in this light.

[DXM User]

He wanted to major in Psych and Philosophy -- he was already a druggie.

[Xvall]

Yeah. I guess I can appreciate that the article was pretty benign compared to how it could be portrayed - still I was bothered by some stuff, like:

“When you do this the first time, you won’t know who you are,” Allen said, “or what you are doing. You won’t be able to write your name on a piece of paper.”

Yeah, ok.

[nigtv]

another reference to it as DMX, awesome

[Tyutchev]

I wish they wouldn't say DXM causes brain damage. That's never been proved.

[Xvall]

Originally posted by Tyutchev@Feb 21 2009, 06:46 PM
I wish they wouldn't say DXM causes brain damage. That's never been proved.

That one bothered me too. I know that if you take an excessive dose of DXM that you will probably risk some form of adverse effects but I would never suggest that DXM runs a risk of "brain damage" just from recreational use. At least not a significant one so long as you are not under the influence of other medications.

“He has sat in his room, picking the pills out of his vomit to take them again,” Terri Allen said.

That one also piqued my curiosity. This has never happened to me. Even after 20 minutes post-dosage the pills were never undigested and were impossible to vomit up. His metabolic processes may have been different but I don't think this is a real issue with DXM use / abuse as it seems EXTREMELY uncommon.

[libel]

There are varying types of brain damage.

There is pruning of the dendrites. ( As seen with Meth )

http://www.pnas.org/content/96/7/4073.abstract?ck=nck

Perhaps pruning is the effect of down-regulated neuronal terminals being rerouted to a newly adapted neural progenitor cell (NPC). The older neurons are then used less, or do not respond as quickly as they did before.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?D...Search=17034791







There is lesioning ( as seen with Ibotenic acid and DXM/DXO )


Lesioning may be the effect of apoptosis. Sustained abuse of dissociative anesthetics is ill-advised.

[libel]

Keep in mind most studies are done with SubQ injections or sometimes straight into the brain. DXM is not meant to be injected. It is not as toxic as PCP or MK-801 by weight, but it will produce symptoms similar to Dissociative Anesthetic intoxication akin to the aforementioned and Ketamine.




As stated before, these are among the most neurotoxic drugs known. Keep in mind they have also found Mercury in HFCS.





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Oral administration of dextromethorphan does not produce neuronal vacuolation in the rat brain

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...2c4814c1553d5be

R.D. Carlissa, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, A. Radovskyb, 1, E-mail The Corresponding Author, C.P. Chengelisb, 1, E-mail The Corresponding Author, T.P. O’Neillb, 1, E-mail The Corresponding Author and D.L. Shueyc, 2, E-mail The Corresponding Author

aUniversity of South Alabama, 1504 Springhill Ave SHAC, rm 2309, Mobile, AL 36604, United States

bWIL Research Laboratories LLC, 1407 George Road, Ashland, OH 44805-9281, United States

cEndo Pharmaceuticals Inc., 100 Endo Blvd., Chadds Ford, PA 19317, United States

Received 28 January 2007;
accepted 20 March 2007.
Available online 6 April 2007.

Abstract

Dextromethorphan is a widely used antitussive agent, also showing increased recreational abuse. Dextromethorphan and its metabolite dextrorphan are non-competitive antagonists at the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor ion channel. Single doses of some NMDA receptor antagonists produce neuropathologic changes in neurons of the retrosplenial/posterior cingulate cortices (RS/PC), characterized by vacuolation or neurodegeneration. To determine whether dextromethorphan produces these characteristic lesions, dextromethorphan was administered orally either as a single dose of 120 mg/kg to female rats, or daily for 30 days at doses of 5–400 mg/(kg day) to male rats and 5–120 mg/(kg day) to female rats. Brains were examined microscopically for evidence of neuronal vacuolation (4–6 h postdose) and neurodegeneration (not, vert, similar24 or 48 h postdose). Administration of dextromethorphan at 120 mg/(kg day) in females, and at ≥150 mg/(kg day) in males produced marked behavioral changes, indicative of neurologic effects. Mortality occurred at the highest doses administered. There were no detectable neuropathologic changes following single or repeated oral administration of dextromethorphan at any dose. Administration of MK-801 (9 mg/kg) produced both cytoplasmic vacuolation and neuronal degeneration in neurons of the RS/PC cortex. Thus characteristic neuropathologic changes found with more potent NMDA receptor antagonists do not occur following single or repeated oral administration of dextromethorphan.