OK, so I intercepted a note from a couple of my students today, and stuck it in my pocket so we could get back to class. I completely forgot about it until much later. It contained some not-so-wholesome stuff (upcoming parties, drug references, getting “f—ed up,” and so on).
Of course I have told the guidance counselor, who will talk to the parents. That’s not the problem. It’s just that I feel a bit out of touch with some of the terms used in the note. How embarrassing to be so unhip.
So…what exactly are “triple C’s” and “mersh”? I know they’re drug-related, but I guess I’m just not up on the slang these days.
[Just for laughs, I considered correcting all of the grammatical errors on the note and making them do it over, but I decided against it.]
I’ve never heard of “triple C’s” before. Might be a regional thing or just some inside slang made up between the guilty parties.
"mersh" is slang for commercial and it means marijuana of very low quality. The opposite of mersh in these parts is dank or chronic. These are slang words for catagories of marijuana. However, it is a common practice among users/buyers/sellers to name specific strains. Possible this is triple C?
Triple C refers to Coricidin HBP Cough & Cold tablets, an over the counter flu medication that can produce a morphine like high in large doses. See the following site:
They’re right. Mersh is like dirt weed. I’ve never heard anyone say triple C, but those explanations sound about right.
I tripped off cough medicine with a friend when I was 12, long story short, I decided it would be really neat to jump up and down (it was), and then I started vomiting. You can imagine what a pool of 2 decent sized bottles of Robotussin DM looks like on white burber carpet.
You may want to suggest to your students that if they do plan to trip off of cough med that they DO NOT use coricidan. It has other chemicals in it that will cause problems in the dosage that they plan to take. (It may be unethical to give them info on which drugs to take but at least you could possible present them with the facts about coricidan and recommend that they do some research on the topic before they take DXM, there are better (safer?) alternatives to Coracidan.)
Actually, while chemically related to morphine, the affects of DXM are most assuredly not opiate-like. Otherwise, there’d probably be a hell of a lot more people doing the stuff. Technically, DXM is a considered a dissociative at very large doses. This is the same category as PCP and Ketamine, though DXM is not nearly as strong as either of those.
It’s hardly a party drug, but teenagers are teenagers, and if it gets them high, they’ll flock to it.
Wow. Only the ones with cast-iron stomaches. I used to do that stuff now and then in high school, and let me tell you it’s nausea city. I could barely drink soda on that stuff, let alone alcohol!
Indeed, the feelings were so strong that for years, every time I walked past the cough syrup display in the supermarket, I would actually feel sick to my stomach!
To me, that’s the biggest argument against Triple-C (which we called Robotripping [from the brand name Robitussin] in my day). It makes you feel sick and antisocial for several hours. You also probably won’t be able to get an erection, and even if you do, you probably won’t be too interested in the things you’d traditionally use it for.
For any future intercepted notes, I suggest you bookmark the office of National Drug Control Policy’s Street Terms Database: "The Street Terms database contains over 2,300 street terms that refer to specific drug types or drug activity."
The best drug term I ever heard was at a concert at RFK Stadium last summer.
Me and my friend were drinking beers in the parking lot when were accosted by a rather shabby looking man who asked:
“You guys looking to hook up with some diaherra?”
Not sure we heard him correctly, we asked him to repeat himself.
“Diaherra. You want some diaherra?”
We replied that we didn’t, in fact, desire any diaherra. He wondered off to a part of the lot where people were openly selling nitrous oxide and presumably had better luck.
Asking around later, I found out that the term “diaherra” is sometimes applied to hashish.
Apparently, the guidance folks knew about the cough and cold medicine being abused, but just didn’t know the “Triple C’s” nickname.
And it was fun to come up to the guidance counselor (about my age–30ish) this morning and say, like an oh-so-hip high school kid, “Yo, I found out about the mersh” (making sure, of course, that no kids were around to hear). We are having a lot of fun with this, though we probably shouldn’t…
I would suggest that you casually drop a little mention aboutneutron star’s little anecdote about loss of erection and associated interest to your students.
I’ve found that it’s one of the easiest and most effective ways of getting a young person’s attention concerning these matters.
Also it can be mentioned that use of marijuana in young adolescent males can cause a rise in the levels of estrogen. (heh heh ). In some cases (admittedly rare) young men can even see an increase in breast tissue.
(evil grin)
Teacher: So hey, I was reading about this the other day - did you know that smoking pot can make a guy’s breast grow? And chugging cough medicine can make you lose the ability to get a woodie? Can you imagine? Gosh, the things you find out nowadays!
Students: :eek:
Some early studies showed a decrease in testoserone among young males, but the studies were specious at best, and modern science has been unable to replicate them. Telling your students things like this will only alienate them.
If you’re a teen and your teacher tells you pot makes men grow breasts, yet you know dozens of male potheads and none of them have breasts, you’d be inclined to think the teacher was lying. If she’s lying about pot, maybe she’s lying about heroin and cocaine, too…
). In some cases (admittedly rare) young men can even see an increase in breast tissue.