NET RESEARCH LEADS TEEN TO ADDICTION

At 16, He's A Veteran At Using Over-The-Counter Meds To Get High

EDMONTON -- Week after week, Ted ventured where few people had gone
before, his perceptions altered, his body numb and weightless.

Ted (not his real name) found the road map to this world on the
Internet, in forums uploaded by and for abusers of over-the-counter
medications.

On a December evening, Ted slouches on a sofa in his parents' living
room. He holds forth as a self-declared expert on the psychoactive
drugs that can be purchased at the local drugstore or on eBay. His
parents listen.

He seems to feel his parents should respect the expertise he has
gained. While admitting miscues that drove him to psychotic
hallucinations and fits of anxiety and depression, Ted feels he is a
competent guide into the drug world.

"I had my own pharmaceutical forum," he says of his favourite Internet
site.

Ted turned 16 this year.

It's been a year in which he was twice put in the secure section of
the children's psychiatric ward at the Royal Alex.

"Ted had a couple of anxiety attacks where Emergency Medical Services
had to come to the school," his mother says.

"The second anxiety attack was Nov. 1, a psychotic moment where he was
seeing a face that was evil, a face without a nose."

Ted feels even those episodes amount to a type of progress. He aspires
to be a writer like Hunter S. Thompson, the uber-cool, drug-addled
author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas who committed suicide in 2005.

Thompson used the printed page to spread his gospel of drugs and
madness. Ted and his cohorts rely on the Internet to spread the word
about dextromethorphan (commonly known as DXM), the active ingredient
in many cold medications.

Ted began browsing the Internet a year ago for how-to information on
the drug. He found a virtual library.

One site lists the "positive" effects of a heavy dose of DXM-- mood
lift, euphoria, giggling, laughing, dissociation of mind from body,
creative dreamlike experiences and occasional empathic feelings,
forgiveness and warm feelings towards others -- certainly a positive
benefit for angst-ridden teens. Some of the negative aspects seem
relatively minor -- upset stomach, vomiting, dizziness, itching. A
final downside was "feelings of being isolated from others and
possible depression."

But teens are invincible -- at least many feel they are. In February,
Ted swallowed 20 red gel capsules full of cold remedy.

His legs went numb and tingly. The feeling spread to his chest and he
lost all sensation in his feet, so he stumbled when he walked. Within
two hours, a feeling of euphoria swept through his body.

"It feels like you are in a dream," Ted says. "It lasted about six
hours."

Ted's jaw shook all the next day. That was all. Two weeks later, he
did it again, then again.

He told his friends about his drug trips. Some were interested in
tagging along.

"Before you know, some were doing it. It was weird, very dissociative
when you are on it. You know there are others there, but it's as if
the world isn't there."

Ted got stoned regularly. His parents say they noticed nothing amiss
at first. Eventually they twigged. He was having mood swings.

"(Ted) never had a temper but he would go off by himself. If we asked
him about something, he would swear at his father -- something he
never did before," his mother says.

It was still a trip to Ted. Sort of.

"It was all fun and everything," Ted says. "I would space out my
doses. I figured I was being so safe, I had done all my research, but
of course it's a drug and there are always negative side effects."

Ted wasn't sleeping well. That was about the time he began
experimenting with other drugs like hydromorphone, a powerful
prescription painkiller. When school resumed in September, his anxiety
began to spike.

"Reality and the drug world began mixing and it began taking over part
of my life, getting in the way of things," Ted says.

Some of Ted's school friends tried DXM nevertheless, he says. Some
would try it only once, others a couple of times with Ted. By this
time, his mother knew he was getting stoned on cough medicine.

"Just before school started back, I went downstairs in the middle of
the night and found him in the basement. His eyes were moving weird. I
knew he had done something. He told me it was cough medicine."

Ted didn't tell his mother he was also trying out a new drug -- a
Mexican smoking herb he had studied on the Internet. One website
informed him it was "a powerful hallucinogen." It would provoke
uncontrollable laughter, visual alterations or visions of multiple
realities and a sense of peace. On the downside it might cause "a
sense of total confusion or madness." Ted purchased some on eBay. It
arrived in the mail.

Concerned about his anxiety, sleeplessness and lack of concentration,
Ted's mother took him to the family doctor. He concluded Ted was
self-medicating to ease his anxiety and prescribed an anti-anxiety
medication. That particular drug may increase anxiety in the first
couple of weeks. It did.

Ted began experiencing full-blown anxiety attacks. During one attack,
his mother called 911 and Ted went to hospital in an ambulance.

After his doctor upped the dosage of the anti-anxiety medication,
Ted's father found his bag of Mexican herb and his pipe in a
sweatshirt Ted had dropped in a laundry hamper. After his parents
confronted him, Ted lost his temper and experienced another full-blown
anxiety attack. He got a second ambulance ride to hospital.

Ted was sent to a psychiatrist who took him off the anti-anxiety
medication and put him on an antipsychotic.

"He was hearing voices," his mother says. Ted's psychiatrist altered
his

medication, thinking Ted might have underlying anxiety problems that
had driven him to experiment with drugs, as is often the case with
people suffering from mental illness.

Ted was in the children's psych ward for two weeks. He seemed to
improve and was let out on a weekend pass. Further improvement allowed
him to go back to school.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, he had a full-blown breakdown. His
psychiatrist altered his medication.

But he was still doing illicit drugs.

Ted had told his parents he would clean up his act, but he
didn't.

One day, when Ted was supposed to pick up his older sister, she phoned
his mother to say there was something wrong with him.

He was stoned. So was his buddy. When Ted arrived home at the wheel of
the family van, his buddy fell out the passenger door onto the lawn
and started vomiting.

Ted stumbled into the house. Ted's mother pressed him about what he
had taken.

"Dextromethorphan," he answered. "I've got a problem. I'm
addicted."

His mother called the mental health hotline. She was told to keep him
at home but watch him. In the morning, his jaw was shaking and he was
anxious. Then he had another psychotic break.

"I can't believe it," he told his mother. "There are hundreds of me."
Ted's father took him to the Royal Alex's emergency ward and he was
re-admitted.

"The psychiatrist told him how disappointed he was," Ted's mother
says.

Ted corrects her.

"He didn't say 'disappointed.' He just asked me why I did it and said
it was wrong. It was you guys who were disappointed."

By this time, Ted had missed too much school, so his course load was
reduced to two classes. His parents arranged addiction counselling
with AADAC. By early December, Ted seemed to be straightening out.
When an article on DXM abuse ran in The Journal, he e-mailed the paper.

"Although the article did state lots of information regarding this
problem it has many holes," he wrote, then went on for three pages
describing details of the drug and its effects. He also offered
himself up for an interview.

After Ted sat on his parents' couch and told The Journal he had
learned his lesson, his mother visited his personal online
pharmaceutical forum. She discovered a recent posting. He had been
lying to her.

Ted was still using.