Teens are abusing certain drugs that are available in without prescription and even in stores. The most common type of abused medicine is cold medicine. The active ingredient, DXM, causes the users to experience hallucinations while high and in large amounts may cause death.
Oxycotin is another drug that’s being abused. It tends to go from just experimenting to a hard-core addiction that is very expensive.
The study reports that 4.2% of eighth graders, 5.3% of 10th graders, and 6.9% of 12th graders admitted taking cold or cough medicines with dextromethorphan (DXM) during the past years to get high. The abuse of Oxycotin was decreasing among 12th graders and it remained constant in the younger groups.
Teens are dying from overdoses. One California teen died in September from taking 20 pills of Coricidin decongestant, which contains DXM. And in February 2005, two 19-year-olds in Cape Coral, Fla., died after overdosing on a purified form of DXM.
The most common reason the abuse of the prescription OTC has gotten so bad with teens is the fact that these drugs are easy to get and cheap.
Some of the other drugs that have been abused are Anti freeze, Lunesta, Vicodin, Lortabs, Xanax, Valium, and OxyContin.

Coriciden Cough & Cold
The main ingredient in cough medicine is a cough suppressant called DXM or Dextromthorphan. The most abused cold medicine is Coriciden Cough & Cold. They come as little, red pills. Some of the slang terms are Skittles, Red Devils, and Triple C.
There are some pretty major effects from these little red pills such as you feel drained, heavy, dizzy, and itchy. Some of the other effects of Coriciden Cough & Cold are blotchy skin, loss of muscle control, possible heart failure, hallucinations, a wild high, and sometimes death.