Friday, February 18, 2000
Kids abuse cough pills, officials say
Coricidin a popular high
BY KRISTINA GOETZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati poison control officials are warning of an alarming drug abuse trend in which teens take large amounts of Coricidin HBP, an over-the-counter cough medicine, in order to get an LSD-like high.
From Jan. 1 to Feb. 14, there were at least 28 calls about abuse of dextromethorphan, a nonprescription cough suppressant, to officials at the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center at Children's Hospital.
Twenty-two of them were specifically about Coricidin, and 19 of the 28 were for ingestions of the drug. About 12 were treated at hospitals.
“It's alarming to us,” said Karen Simone, manager of the information center. “This is a very large amount of cases for anything, much less for over-the-counter.”
Dr. Simone said most other calls were from health professionals, school officials and law enforcement officers seeking information about multiple cases of drug abuse or shoplifting of Coricidin.
The information center has also received calls from parents who discovered their children were abusing the drug or other dextromethorphan-containing products.
Although no deaths have been reported, Dr. Simone said the symptoms — increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, drowsiness, dizziness, hallucinations and confusion — are serious.
“We're afraid if this pattern continues, that there may be a serious outcome or a fatality,” Dr. Simone said, adding that calls have come from as far as Akron and Toledo.
“It's not just this area.”
Dextromethorphan abuse is not new. Large amounts of Robitussin-DM and other similar drugs have been abused for years, but most contain up to 15 mg of dextromethorphan per teaspoon. The new trend of using Coricidin is an attempt to avoid drinking 4 ounces to 8 ounces or more of cough syrup at a time, which often causes nausea, Dr. Simone said.
“It's easier to swallow eight or 10 or 15 tablets than to take one to three bottles,” she said.
Coricidin HBP for Cough and Cold has 30 mg of dextromethorphan per tablet. It also contains 4 mg of chlorpheniramine, an antihistamine. Excessively large amounts of either drug could be fatal, Dr. Simone said.
An additional risk for those engaging in this trend is choosing the wrong Coricidin product. Some include acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and/or phenylpropanolamine, a decongestant. Overdoses of acetaminophen can cause liver damage, and large doses of phenylpropanolamine are toxic to the heart and central nervous system.
John Mallery of Catholic Social Services, an organization that does school-based substance abuse prevention, said teens he's talked with have experimented with the drug and some are taking high doses.
“I've heard of kids taking upwards of 50,” he said. “It's what all the kids are talking about.”
Officials from the drug and poison information center said the users have been teens and young adults, mostly 13-19.
“It gets them high, they hallucinate and it's easy to get,” Mr. Mallery said. “It's a part of their culture to try different things.”
For more information, call the drug and poison center information hot line at (513) 558-5111.
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