Oct. 22--Five Marin County high school students were recently hospitalized for allegedly abusing a form of the cold medicine Coricidin, school officials confirmed Wednesday.
Three Tamalpais High School students were hospitalized in the last week after they were believed to have abused the over-the-counter cough medicine. Containing dextromethorphan and chlorpheniramine, Coricidin is commonly used to treat headaches, fever and pain, school Principal Julie Synyard said in a letter sent to parents Tuesday.
The other two students, who are enrolled at Drake High School, were sent to area hospitals in the last several weeks, school officials said. The students' ages were not released, but school officials said they are in ninth to 11th grade.
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The teens have recovered from their symptoms and returned to school. They were offered counseling, said David Yoshihara, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District.
"It goes without saying that it is a tragedy that any student should be harmed by drugs," he said. "The recent incidents are really an indication of the larger issue we have, as a community and as a nation, with misuse and abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs."
The district notified parents about the recent drug-related hospitalizations in an effort to "collectively respond to the issue before it grows," Yoshihara said. All ninth grade students, he said, receive drug- and alcohol-awareness education.
Yoshihara has asked community groups to help find solutions to the drug problem affecting teens.
The district, about 16 miles north of San Francisco, oversees 4,000 students in five Bay Area high schools. Tamalpais High is in Mill Valley, once deemed by Forbes Magazine as America's most expensive zip code.
Dextromethorphan, one of the active ingredients in Corcidin, is found in more than 120 over-the-counter cold medications, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Often referred to as "Skittles, "Triple C" and "Poor Man's PCP," dextromethorphan causes euphoria, confusion, agitation and hallucinations if taken in high doses.
Drug users traditionally drink large amounts of liquid cough medicine. But abuse of tablets and gel capsules has also increased.
The drug can have effects similar to ecstasy, marijuana, ketamine or PCP, but that largely depends on the dose.
Synyard urged parents to start a dialogue with their children about Triple C.
"As a school community, we all need to be very aware of this issue because an overdose can result in death," Synyard wrote in the letter.
