Middle School, High School Students Overdose on Cold Medicine

A student and a student both overdosed last week in two separate incidents on a cold medicine that has a history of abuse for its hallucinogenic properties, city officials announced this morning at a press conference.

On Tuesday, March 29 two Melrose High School students were seen on camera inside the middle school, according to Jennifer Kelly, the coordinator. When the students were questioned by school officials as to why they were in the wrong school, officials discovered one of the high school students had taken between 12-15 Coricidin pills that the student had stolen from a store on the way to school that morning.

Kelly said school officials also learned on Tuesday that on the preceding Sunday, March 27, a Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School student had taken a similar amount of Coricidin pills in an off-school property incident.

Both students were taken to the hospital and given an intravenous solution to induce vomiting following each incident, Kelly said, and are now home and OK.

Coricidin and Robitussin both contain dextromethorphan (DXM), an over-the-counter cough suppressant. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) website, DXM abuse—referred to on the street as "Robo-tripping" or "skittling"—results in hallucinogenic effects.

"Abuse of combination DXM products also results in health complications from the other active ingredient(s), which include increased blood pressure from pseudoephedrine, potential delayed liver damage from acetaminophen, and central nervous system toxicity, cardiovascular toxicity and anticholinergic toxicity from antihistamines," the DEA website says. "The abuse of high doses of DXM in combination with alcohol or other drugs is particularly dangerous and deaths have been reported."

Officer Robert Mann, the new school resource officer, said abuse of DXM has been around for 30 to 40 years.

"It's allegedly being stolen from stores," Mann said. "I think it's 16 tablets for about $44 and it's being sold on the street between $5 and $7 per box."

In response to the incident, school officials contacted the and Kelly, who then visited each of the stores and pharmacies in Melrose selling Coricidin. Because the students had reportedly stolen the medicine—which Kelly said sometimes requires showing identification to prove that the purchaser is 18—she asked the stores to move any Cordicin they had behind the counter.

"CVS and Green Street (Pharmacy) already had it behind the counter; and the other stores, Johnnie's (Foodmaster) and Shaw's immediately, in front of me, took it off the shelves," Kelly said. "Walgreens and Rite Aid just had to speak to their manager to get the OK and then they were going to remove it."