MENDHAM, N.J., March 21, 2008
Kids Flaunt Cough-Syrup Abuse Online
DXM: It's Legal, Easy To Get And Simple To Find Out About Online
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Play CBS Video Video DXM 'Robo-tripping' On YouTube Millions of young people admit to using cough and cold medicines to get high. Don't believe it? Many will tell you themselves ... on YouTube. Michelle Miller reports.
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Video Cough-Syrup Abuse Awareness Steve Pasierb of Partnership for Drug-Free America tells CBS News most parents have no frame of reference when it comes to cough-syrup abuse among kids.
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(CBS)
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Interactive Substance Abuse In America Get the facts on a national problem. Find out where to get help, learn how drugs affect the body and compare state drunk-driving laws.
But kids are getting high off of it - and plenty of videos online show that. On YouTube, video after video shows kids flaunting their highs, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports.
Kids saying: "My brain is like whoo," "I'm like flying right now," and "I'm tripping so hard," are all on the same drug: DXM.
DXM is dextromethorphan, the cough-suppressant found in more than 100 over-the-counter cough medicines.
Today's parents may warn their kids about marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, but when it comes to DXM, most parents are clueless … or worse.
"There's a mix of 'oh, it's not that bad,' or actual relief: 'oh, my kid's just getting high on cough medicine!'" said Steve Pasierb of Partnership for Drug-Free America.
It's called robo-tripping, skittling, tussin or triple-c. One-in-10 kids admits to it, and while parents think drugs start with high school, the average age first-time use is between 12 and 13.
"It was cheap, it was fun, and it was easy to get," said one teen named Derrick.
He started abusing DXM at 16. Then he added marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin within a year.
"It'll ruin your life cause that's all you'll think about," said Laura, who used for just a few months.
"Everyone noticed me when I was on it. I just wanted to be noticed I guess," she said.
Laura and Derrick are currently in rehab, where 60 percent of the kids have abused cold medicine. Some blame the Internet for spreading the word.
"Kids go online and Google, 'cheap way to get high,' ... they're met with literally thousands of sites," Pasierb said.
And the sites are a crash course in Drug Abuse 101. There are even calculators to comute doseage based on a weight for a tailor-made high. It can be eight to 12 times the recommended amount.
But parents can fight back.
"I lost my family, I lost a lot of my capabilities," Derrick said. "I lost time. I lost my childhood."
And adolescence is tough enough without drugs.
For more information about kids and substance abuse, including educational materials, see:
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Add a Comment See all 12 Comments
- That is a false way of doing that, the parents shouldn''t take those medicines for children, because I have already seen the bane of these medicines on the website [[[www.40plusconnect.com]]], the experts have already carried on analysis to these medicines
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- When I was in 7th grade, I didn''t fight the system with cough medicine. I wrote all the final exam essays asking why we follow a system that is so evil and f*cked up? Why is this more of a monkey farm and fashion show than a school? Why do I have to fear saying things agianst this system which attepts to put you as my middle man to what God has given to all?
Needless to say, I was suspended more than in school. - Reply to this comment
- Wipe out ,lots of kids are not going to make it,DOA, from everything from car crashes to falling off a curb,drugs ,it''''s called evolution,not all the salmon make up river.
Posted by beehive21
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What happens when your water stops flowing, beesalmon21? ;)
While some kids are stupid, they will have a knock-on effect on the others. "Peer pressure" is the term. And peers aren''t always right. After all, look what''s deemed popular on television... :D - Reply to this comment
- Here''s a novel idea. Take your kids to church regularly. Not some watered down "I''m ok, you''re ok" church like Joel Osteen''s church where he''s terrified to mention right vs wrong.
Here''s another amazing idea. Watch what your kids do on line, better yet spend some time with your kids. Visit and "question" the parents of all their friends. Get involved. Oh I am sure some moron is going to tell you "if your too hard on them now, they''ll just party twice as hard and get in more trouble when they leave home". Want to bet where that line of thinking came from? Some liberal (broken) family where they let their kids run wild.
I am sick of hearing of kids (YES UNDER 18 IS A KID) getting on line and having all kinds of freedom and some even getting lured by stalkers and killed while their parents are making excuses about having to work blah blah blah.
Remember that 13 year old where she was driven to suicide by harassing remarks from a grown woman and her teenage daughter pretending to be a boy who liked her??? People all over the nation feeling sorry for the parents? ***? You don''t let a 13 have a *** myspace page much less a "romance" fake or not. Those parents ENABLED their daughter to kill herself.
Stop asking for more laws to be written, stop asking for more money for this program and that program, stop the *** lawsuits and transferring blame AND RAISE YOUR *** KIDS ! - Reply to this comment
- "Stupid is as stupid does."
- Reply to this comment
- "Tell your kids, despite what they may see on the Internet, there is no safe way to get high."
And if your kid should say "BS", understand that they are not only correct, but your own predilection to get high on alcohol, prescription medicines, coffee, and other high inducing substances makes you look like a hypocritical brainwashed fool for following the advice in the above article. - Reply to this comment
- Yep, and thanks to CBS news its now widely promoted, as are the youtube clips.
Posted by newster1 at 01:17 AM : Mar 22, 2008
That made me laugh...the news does have a remarkable ability to generate a raging pandemic with their alarmist news stories.
At least this one didn''t use the phrase "silent epidemic". - Reply to this comment
- One can still buy airplane glue and Redi-Whip, so stop panicking, this too shall pass
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- Sad part is .. its going to become one more thing that will be put "behind the counter", making it harder to get when you need a cough med when places quit carrying it because of the hassle.
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- "{Laura and Derrick are currently in rehab, where 60 percent of the kids have abused cold medicine. Some blame the Internet for spreading the word. "
Yep, and thanks to CBS news its now widely promoted, as are the youtube clips. - Reply to this comment
- Yea! under the republiCon watch,
oh my Gawd;
run for your life
orange alert - Reply to this comment
- Wipe out ,lots of kids are not going to make it,DOA, from everything from car crashes to falling off a curb,drugs ,it''s called evolution,not all the salmon make up river.
- Reply to this comment
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