# So kids are using cough syrup to get high now?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 6, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076 "2006-12-06T15:21:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/1 "2006-12-06T15:21:16Z")
The San Jose Mercury News has been running a series of articles I nickname “Dumb shit kids are getting high off of without their parents knowing” Basically writing progressively more and more obscure methods kids will use to get high. I suppose the War on Drugs has raised awareness to parents about drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana. Some adolescent addicts, deprived of these things, apparently get their kicks by overdosing on cough syrup/cold pills or even playing the ‘choking game’ :rolleyes: (Dear Abbey LOVES to publish letters from parents whose children died/were involved with the choking game btw).
The new ‘drugs’ are getting sillier and sillier. Not long before it is all about the dangers of toad licking, known on the street as ‘kissing kermit’ :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/2 "2006-12-06T15:26:21Z")
Naw, kids have been getting high on cough syrup for decades. Also, solvents, cleaning fluids, mouthwash, gasoline, glue, nail polish, Scotchgard, aerosol propellants… if it can give you a buzz, no matter how unsafe it is, somebody is getting buzzed on it right now.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/3 "2006-12-06T15:26:27Z")
Incubus, I remember being one them thar’ goldang fool-headed kids in the 80s, and cough syrup was an issue then also. It’s the codeine, right? But didn’t they do something about that–put cough syrup that has it behind the counter, maybe?
Anyway. This one isn’t new.
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### Author:  [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/4 "2006-12-06T15:29:52Z")
[QUOTE=Sattua]
Incubus, I remember being one them thar’ goldang fool-headed kids in the 80s, and cough syrup was an issue then also. It’s the codeine, right? .
[/QUOTE]
Used to be codine, I think that’s perscription only these days. The thing the kids are after these days is Dextromathorpan from cough syrup.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/5 "2006-12-06T15:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Sattua]
Incubus, I remember being one them thar’ goldang fool-headed kids in the 80s, and cough syrup was an issue then also. It’s the codeine, right?
[/QUOTE]
Not the codeine. They don’t put that in OTC preparations. It’s the [dextromethorphan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-medical_use_of_dextromethorphan) (or DXM) which has a hallucingenic/disassociative effect at high doses. IOW, it makes you trip balls.
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### Author:  [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/6 "2006-12-06T15:35:45Z")
Certain roommates of mine did this probably four days a week, back in undergrad. You’d think maybe the clerk would’ve gotten suspicious when he saw the same two people coming in for a half-dozen bottles of Robitussin each from Thursday to Monday…
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### Author:  [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/7 "2006-12-06T15:40:31Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur Catta]
Certain roommates of mine did this probably four days a week, back in undergrad. You’d think maybe the clerk would’ve gotten suspicious when he saw the same two people coming in for a half-dozen bottles of Robitussin each from Thursday to Monday…
[/QUOTE]
:eek: At that age, why not just get buzzed on, you know, beer?
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### Author:  [@chinesenewyear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chinesenewyear)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/8 "2006-12-06T15:42:56Z")
LOL @ white people just discovering sizzurp.
It’s called Promethazine, folks.
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### Author:  [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/9 "2006-12-06T15:53:39Z")
How much does it take for one person to get high on? What I’m getting at, is this more cost effective than pot for example, or do you need to drop twenty bucks or so for one evenings enjoyment?
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/10 "2006-12-06T16:07:50Z")
I’ll admit that I tried this a few times right after high school. I usually took two bottles. It is a lot more intense than one might think. It distorts time to the point where you think an hour has passed when really it was only four minutes. It creates a weird out of body experience. Sometimes I thought I was really tiny and everything in the room was giant, but also sometimes vice versa. If you walked across the room you felt like your body had to catch up with your mind.
:eek:
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### Author:  [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/11 "2006-12-06T16:11:13Z")
From a helpful website (no link, but if you feel lucky, try cough syrup high) 150ml is a good starting point with 300 ml, or almost a full 12oz bottle, purported to be a normal dose. At 10.49 a bottle, seems a bit more expensive than pot and beer. The helpful website also notes that the unavoidable case of the trots is OK because “it usually ends before the high starts” 🙂
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/12 "2006-12-06T16:24:00Z")
[QUOTE=chinesenewyear]
LOL @ white people just discovering sizzurp.
It’s called Promethazine, folks.
[/QUOTE]
Talking about two different things here, I think. “Sizzurp” / “lean” is prescription cough syrup containing an opiate (usually codeine or hydrocodone) with or without promethazine.
This is different from the dextromethorphan-containing OTC cough syrups, which as **Diogenes** , said, can be intensely hallucinogenic/dissociative in high enough doses. Pills containing DXM are sometimes sold as ecstasy, although the effects are considerably different.
For a kid with access to nothing else, I guess it gets the job done. One episode of the series “Big Love” on HBO involved teenage characters (presumably all Mormons?) tripping on “Robo.”
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### Author:  [@Muriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muriel)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/13 "2006-12-06T16:43:44Z")
Don’t forget Vanilla Extract… At least 35% alcohol.
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### Author:  [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/14 "2006-12-06T16:44:02Z")
I had to show my ID and write down my name & address the last time I wanted to buy some Dimetapp for my kid. The pharmacist told me that it is used to make Meth, so it’s kind of a semi-controlled subtance now.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/15 "2006-12-06T16:44:59Z")
This is old, old news. Back in the early 80’s the slang term for it was “Roboing”, meaning to chug cherry Robitussin. There was even a non-verbal signal for it - a person would take their arms and mime rowing a boat for a couple of strokes. By the early 90’s I knew people who were mixing it with vodka and Everclear.
Kids find everything and anything to get high, which gives some back-handed support for some viewpoints towards legalization of “minor” drugs. An ex-friend was badly addicted to Nyquil, and I knew of several people that played the “choking game,” some of them involuntarily. :eek: On a related note, I never encountered the urban-legendish “hard liquor enemas” that all the sorority girls were supposed to be into (that subject typically comes up when this one does). While I know alcohol enemas are something that some people are into, I suspect that the image of a whole sorority of nubile girls lounging around naked with enema bags of Bacardi slowly filling them is really some sort of wishful-thinking scat-porn fever-dream of oversexed boys.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/16 "2006-12-06T16:55:34Z")
[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
Used to be codine, I think that’s perscription only these days. The thing the kids are after these days is Dextromathorpan from cough syrup.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm, I still have about a half bottle of codine laced cough syrup from the bronchitis a few months back..
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### Author:  [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/17 "2006-12-06T17:12:08Z")
The thought of drinking two bottles of cough syrup makes me want to vomit.
BTW back in my early teens we\* used to huff Scotch Guard and TV Tuner, take Dramamine, Vivarin combined with cold pills, and drugs stolen out of our parents medicine tablets (thanks for the valium dad!). Some mornings at school were spent trading drugs: “I’ll trade you a valium for a Xanax” and the like. But cough syrup? That’s just fucked up! 😉
\*“We” were idiots. Abusing drugs is bad, especially when they can cause serious damage to your brain and liver.
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### Author:  [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/18 "2006-12-06T17:12:19Z")
Hell I remember stories of mothers giving it to babies to shut them up at night. I seem to recall it wasn’t all that uncommon.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/19 "2006-12-06T18:04:21Z")
“In a world in which elephants are pursued by flying men, people are just naturally going to want to get high”
Micheal Moriaties shit-for-brains character in Who’ll Stop the Rain.
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-kids-are-using-cough-syrup-to-get-high-now/383076/20 "2006-12-06T19:25:06Z")
“Kids”? “Now”?
John Nova Lomax is Music Editor for _The Houston Press_. Here’s a column from last year:
> [@](#):
>
> On Sunday, April 17, the centerpiece story in the Arts and Entertainment section of The New York Times was a story about how, via the Slim Thug/Mike Jones/Paul Wall hit single “Still Tippin’,” Houston’s homegrown screw music was poised to take over the hip-hop nation. Screw – the slowed-down hip-hop invented by DJ Screw as music for people to enjoy while high on codeine cough syrup – was presented as something new, weird and uniquely Houstonian.
>
> All of which it indubitably is – at least for hip-hop. But it’s mostly forgotten today that Screw was really the second Houston codeine aficionado to revolutionize a local scene. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Townes Van Zandt turned Houston’s folk and country/Americana music on its head, thanks in no small part to his appreciation for the drug that is today called lean.
>
> I told former Houstonian and Texas songwriting legend Guy Clark about screw music – which he had never heard of – and here is what he had to say: “Some things never change. You can always count on Houston’s codeine heads.”
[http://houstonpress.com/Issues/2005-05-05/music/racket.html](http://houstonpress.com/Issues/2005-05-05/music/racket.html)
Yup, H-town is my home!
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