I have a cold and went out and bought some cough medicine. I got I.D’d without buying the nighttime version. Why would people go to the trouble of using cough medicine to get high in comparison to other drugs? How does it even work?
In: Chemistry
Dextromethorphan is an active ingredient in most OTC cough medications in the US, and is a drug of abuse, hence being IDed for it. It is a dissociative, similar to other drugs of abuse in that class like ketamine or nitrous oxide (laughing gas.) It causes euphoria, relaxation or stimulation (depending on the dose), heightened sensitivity to lights and sounds (causing effects like enhanced appreciation of music), and can cause a “trippy” effect similar somewhat to psychedelics. It can also reduce the sensation of physical pain, as other dissociatives do. I have heard a lot of people describe it as “baby ketamine” and having done both many times, I’d say that’s a fairly accurate comparison. It is a difficult drug to compare to others in its effects though, as it is a fairly unique feeling and changes dramatically depending on the dose.
People use it instead of other drugs because it is easily accessible over the counter. It also did not use to require ID, I believe, which made it popular for teenagers who couldn’t get weed or alcohol and were experimenting.
It’s used in cough syrup as the antitussive agent (to suppress your cough.) In most cough syrups, the dose is not high enough to get someone very “high” without ingesting a dangerous amount of the other medications in the cough syrup. There are some cough medications that are exclusively DXM, that’s usually what people actually use to get high. However people will use and abuse any cough syrup with DXM as an ingredient, though it is dangerous (acetaminophen/paracetamol is often included in cough syrup and is VERY dangerous at high doses.)
Its method of action is mostly as an NMDA receptor agonist. NMDA receptor agonists are well known for inducing “dissociative anesthesia” and having rapid antidepressant qualities, particularly with patients who are resistant to more standard antidepressants (it’s not entirely agreed upon how or why that works.) Note: There are a couple NMDA receptor agonists that are used as antidepressants that do not induce euphoria and are not common drugs of abuse, so there is more going on with DXM than just this—it also increases serotonin.
It may also depend on what cough syrup you bought, as pseudoephedrine is (rarely, in my experience) an ingredient in some cough medications and is used in making methamphetamine and will also cause you to be IDed.
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