YOUNG TEENS GET HIGH ON OTC COLD REMEDIES

A group of former users and parents wants pharmacies to make the drugs
harder to obtain by putting them behind counters.

CHAPEL HILL -- There's an extremely prevalent drug in Chapel Hill called
dextromethorphan, or DXM. It produces a woozy, hallucinogenic effect. It
doesn't show up on most drug tests and it's relatively cheap.

It's also available in legal, bar-coded products, sold on grocery store
shelves alongside mouthwash and body soap.

"When it kicked in, it was like, 'Oh my god,' like I've been drinking and
smoking all day," said Jordan, 17, describing his first DXM experience at
the age of 14. "I felt so messed up."

Anyone who's caught a cold has had good reason to use DXM, an active
ingredient in over-the-counter remedies such as Robitussin or Coricidin
tablets. Depending on the product, recommended doses can suppress coughs and
reduce fevers.

Quadrupling the dose, however, leaves users with a prolonged high. Coupled
with alcohol, the experience is even more severe.

"It says it right on the box, 'Alcohol will intensify effects,'" said
Jordan, who wished to keep his last name private. "If you take one shot, it
feels like you took six."

Now Jordan, other former DXM-abusers and their parents are starting a local
campaign against misuse of products containing the drug. The group's mission
is two-pronged: Its members want more public awareness of the lesser-known,
potentially fatal drug, and they're determined to make certain cough
remedies harder to shoplift.

Most of the effort revolves around the Summit School, a private Chapel Hill
program for high-school aged students dealing with drug or alcohol
addiction. The school's fees run $5,500 a year, with an additional start-up
fee of $1,500.

"As long as I've been doing this work, DXM has been a significant problem,"
said Christa Niven, who's headed the Summit School since 2001. "Kids are
stealing it left and right. You can't screen for it. Most parents don't even
know what it is."

According to Niven and several former users, DXM has a stronger appeal among
the under-16 set. Middle school students and high school underclassmen are
more intimidated by hardcore street drugs, which require connections and
money. Over-the-counter medicines are conspicuous and easy to steal, they
said.

"It's like they're just selling drugs and alcohol to minors," Jordan said.
"When you don't have anything else, you go pick it up and get messed up for
free."

Ultimately, the group wants the products sold only behind pharmacy counters,
where clerks could keep a close eye on how many boxes or bottles are
disappearing.

"An 11-year-old certainly won't be able to walk into a pharmacy and buy
eight boxes," Niven said.

Managers at two local Food Lions -- one in Timberlyne Village and another on
Jones Ferry Road -- both characterized shoplifting of cold medicines as a
minor problem in their stores. Managers at two Chapel Hill Eckerd drug
stores and two Harris Teeters would not comment on theft of cold medicines,
referring all questions to their corporate headquarters, whose
representatives did not provide any information by press time.

An Eckerd manager at the Raleigh Road location refused to giver her name but
said, "Unless it's a high-theft item, it doesn't go behind the counter."

Merchants haven't contacted the Chapel Hill Police Department about a spike
in cold medicine thefts, said Matt Sullivan, a police crisis counselor.

Though DXM abuse in Chapel Hill is no epidemic, Sullivan said he and other
counselors first noticed more incidents about 18 to 24 months ago. Because
cough tablets aren't controlled narcotics, awareness of the problem has
surfaced through parent phone calls rather than DXM-related arrests, he
said.

"Sometimes we'll get calls from parents who find four or five bottles of
Robitussin in their kid's room," Sullivan said. "One parent told me, 'I just
thought my kid was sick all the time.'"

Young DXM abusers do typically shoplift medicines rather than purchasing
them, Sullivan said. Similar to their protocol regarding alcohol, he said
officers who find a suspicious amount of DXM products on a minor will turn
his name over to police counselors.

"We handle it by working with the family," Sullivan said. "Hopefully the
parents would help us find a long-term solution."

Effects of DXM can include dizziness, slurred speech, nausea and numbness of
fingers, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Abusers often
seek different plateaus of intoxication, brought on by ingesting hundreds or
even thousands of DXM milligrams. Online calculators even use a person's
body weight to suggest how many tablets to consume. One Internet calculator
recommends that a 100-pound person consume more than 20 30-milligram pills
to reach the highest plateau.

On the day Jordan overdosed, he'd taken about 90 pills before doing yard
work at Niven's house.

"He wasn't responding at all. His pupils were dilating randomly," Niven
said. "You would think anyone else would die."

Jordan was kept at UNC Hospitals for seven days. Fresh back from treatment,
he's now enrolled at the Summit School and actively looking for a job.

Emergency room workers at UNC Hospitals said that while patients are
sometimes admitted for DXM abuse, they "haven't seen a spike," said
Stephanie Crayton, media relations manager for UNC Health Care.

One Chapel Hill mother, Sallie Moore, said her 16-year-old son -- a former
East Chapel Hill High School student -- has been hospitalized twice for
using DXM and is in a Minnesota treatment center. His abuse of cold medicine
grew from a pot habit, Moore said.

"Just like a lot of kids, he was experimenting with marijuana," she said.
"One day he didn't have any marijuana. It wasn't there, so he did this
instead."

Though "cautiously optimistic," Moore said the recovery is doubly difficult
because "he can just walk into a drug store and pick some more up."

After several DXM overdoses in Merrill, Wis., which contains only about
10,000 people, several drugstores moved heavily abused medicines from the
open shelves to the guarded pharmacy counter. Moore would like local
pharmacies to make similar gestures and eventually wants the movement to
spread across the state.

"It's like having cocaine sitting right out on the store shelves," Moore
said. "I don't know when I'll feel safe."

DEXTROMETHORPHAN FACTS

Street names:

. C-C-C . Robo . Skittles . Red Devils
. DXM
. Robo-tripping
. Tussin
. Dex

Signs of abuse:

. Mental status changes
. Lethargy
. Ataxia
. Slurred speech
. Confusion
. Hallucinations
. Delusions

Health hazards of abuse:

. Seizures
. Dry mouth
. Loss of body fluid
. Dry itchy skin
. Blurred vision
. Cognitive alterations
. Nausea
. Abdominal pain
. Vomiting
. Irregular heartbeat
. High blood pressure
. Numbness of fingers or toes
. Redness of face
. Headache
. Loss of consciousness
. Death