Robotripping: Teens Getting High, Tripping on Cold Medicine
Posted By: Elisabeth Wilkins, EP Editor
Category: Drugs, News, Substance Abuse, Teens, Tweens
Comments: 7
If you think your child hasn’t tried Robotripping, you might want to read this.
Last week, a mom wrote to us with this story:
I’m not sure if you are aware of this recent trend of kids drinking Robitussin, but I found out about it by accident from my 16-year old daughter, who lives with her Dad. She got mixed up with a 19-year old freak who drinks whole entire bottles of Robitussin to get high. Also, I don’t understand the reason behind this, but they sometimes combine Robitussin, Jolly Ranchers, and some kind of clear pop like Sprite or 7-Up to make a “cocktail.”
My daughter said she will never do this again, because it made her so sick she was vomiting on & off for 3 days. Do you have any recent reports or info regarding students under the age of 18 using Robitussin to get high? This is the first I have heard about it.
–Southwest Mom
To be honest, I’d heard murmurs about this trend, but didn’t realize how widespread it has gotten. When I was in high school, I remember a kid named Mike who drank Scope and cough syrup between classes. Everyone knew he was doing it, but nobody else joined in. In fact, I remember feeling a little sorry for him. Well, times have changed. I dug around on the Internet and found out that “Robotripping,” as it’s now called, is hugely popular with kids aged 9-17. Basically, it involves consuming large amounts of Robitussin or other cough syrups containing DXM until you get high–apparently, when you drink enough of it, it has a hallucinogenic effect. Coricidin, or “doing Skittles” is also a popular abuse of an OTC drug. (In 2006, 1 in 10 teens admitted to abusing the medicine to get high.) There are even whole websites devoted to making up tasty cocktails with cold medicines, complete with little charts that show you how much you need to drink in order to get wasted. Kids feel like it’s safe to do this becaues these are medicines found in their parents’ bathrooms, but sadly, some have actually overdosed and died from Robotripping.
Does anyone else have more information on this, or on other OTC drugs that kids are abusing? (I’m including a link here to the Mayo Clinic website, where a doctor describes what you should look for if you suspect your child is Robotripping.)
7 Responses
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July 23rd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Where did you come up with the name, “robotripping”? The kids are calling it, “surping”. That’s their name for it.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Terry, thanks for the info. When I was researching it online, a lot of articles (including the one I linked to in this post) referred to it as “Robotripping.” But thanks for the update!
July 30th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I wanted to say something about this getting
high off cough syrup thing. I think these kids
are just trying to fit in with there age group.
Maybe have a little fun. These kids probably don’t
think about the consequences. And since I’m am only
thirteen, I know what in there heads. When you parents
say that you can die from it, they don’t think your
serious. Or maybe, they have feel into addiction with
the feeling. I get high, a lot. From hair spay to weed
to huffing axe. If you have a kid like me, then maybe,
there problem is whats going on around them.
There could be a million reason they do it.
I do it so I can numb myself, it makes it easier
when my parents fight, or my dad hits me, or when
he hits my mom.My mom is trying real hard to fix the problems in our life no and it started with leaving my dad for good this time but she not only is putting me in treatment she is seeking treatment for my dad too. She said that you have to get to the root of the problem to be able to fix anything correctly. Hope this helps. From a kid that knows.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
[...] Then they take them in various combinations just to see what will happen.” (He warned that abuse of OTC drugs, ie Robotripping, is also very [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I just caught my 17 yr old son drinking cough medicine to get high. Apparently he had taken cough medicine pills in the past and I didn’t pick up on it because the high didn’t last as long as the cough syrup high I busted him on. I was so scared and didn’t know what to do for him. My advise to other parents is if you kids eyes are dialated they are quite possibly high on over the counter drugs. Question them, threaten to have them tested for it. Threaten to take them to have blood work done whatever you have to do to get a truthful answer out of them. I knew my son was tripping on something. He kept insisting he was just tired. I kept on till I got the truth. I am glad I didn’t just toss it off as aa teen who had stayed up all night. Now I feel like I have to watch him like a hawk and will for awhile. Its scary stuff these kids are doing.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
hey. i’m a 24 year old male who used to robotrip heavily when i was probably around 17 or 18 i think. (in response to the post about ’surping’, i think that term is more related to codeine cough syrup, which is a prescription cough syrup, not over the counter cough syrups like robotussin…) anyways, i thought i would share a little firsthand information about this whole subject. first off, when i see that parents are worried that their kids are getting ‘high’, it makes me think they don’t fully understand the effects. sure if you don’t drunk much or whatever you will probably just feel a little high with a body buzz, but i drank enough (can’t remember exactly how much, maybe one really big bottle or 2 small bottles…) to make me walk so slowly and poorly that it sometimes would take me like 5 or 10 minutes to make my my way from one end of a room to the other. i would also talk to people who were not actually there. it was funny to me at the time and it still is a little funny now but only because i’m super healthy now and don’t do any of that stuff anymore. the reason i point out the hardly being able to walk is that if someone drinks enough cough syrup, they are probably 70 percent likely to crash their car. they will likely get into legal trouble for being messed up, but i think their safety and the safety of others is the bigger concern. coricidin or ‘triple c’s’ as we called them in my town, were actually more popular than cough syrup, probably because you didn’t have to drink all that liquid. it’s similar but also very different in certain ways from robotripping. one thing that i noticed happening in my town toward the end of my usage was that these types of cough syrups and pills were becoming increasingly hard to purchase, even if you were over 18. they began keeiping the stuff in the pharmacy (which closed at nite, making it impossible to trip late at nite…). they also made me sign a form and only allowed me to purchase one box of coricidin. while i was still able to trip, it made me not want to have to go back to that store and look like an addict. i was also scared that they would report that information to the police. anyways in hindsight it was a great idea for limiting access to these types of drugs. the only downfall of this is that sometimes they take the ‘best’ types of these drugs into the pharmacy, leaving kids to decide which looks like their best alternative choice on the shelves. a lot of the drugs on the shelves contain dxm, the tripping chemical, but also contain other drugs that you do not want to consume in large doses. so it’s a bit of a tradeoff. i would say talk to your kids and print articles about deaths, overdoses, damage it does to your body, etc. one last thing, keep an eye out for your kids buying ‘dust-off’. most kids don’t need such an expensive cleaner for their laptop so they’re probably getting high off it. i watched a kid go into a seizure after taking a huge huff of dust-off. it was one of the scariest things i’ve ever seen. when he finally came to, i told everybody that we were all idiots for huffing the stuff and that we needed to stop right away. hope some of this info helps anybody who may be reading it.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
ekim 23, how big was your room?