Teen Hospitalized After Abusing Cough Medicine Pills Prompts Police to Investigate a Dangerous Trend

Riverside police are warning their community about the dangers of “Triple C” pills after a 14-year-old almost overdosed on the medicine during a high school basketball game earlier this month.

Police were called to Riverside Brookfield High School at 7:17 p.m. Jan. 10 for a possible overdose at a nighttime game, Police Chief Tom Weitzel stated in a release. A young teenager was stumbling and acting incoherently, according to his friend, and the teen said he’d taken 16 cough medicine pills.

The pills he reportedly took — Triple C — are also known as dextromethorphan, or DXM, and are available at drug stores without a prescription. When taken by the handful, they can cause a strong, hallucinogenic high, police said.

The young man was taken to the high school nurse’s office but quickly transported to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood after police and paramedics arrived. He was released after being treated by emergency room doctors.

Further investigation revealed that the teenager had gotten Triple C pills from another student before the game. Police are still looking into how he came to possess and ingest the pills.

There has been widespread abuse of the cough medicine pills, Weitzel said, and the Drug Enforcement Administration now monitors the medication as closely as it can. In some cases, policy states you must be 18 or older to purchase the pills, though it’s not the law in Illinois.

“Oftentimes parents are unaware that teens abuse this type of product, despite package warning that alert parents to potential teen abuse and directions that only one tablet should be taken every six hours,” Weitzel said in the release. “For those parents who think that the Riverside Police Department should not be releasing such information, I disagree. Teens are well aware of the Triple C products already and it is being abused. As chief, it is my obligation to get this information out to students, staff members and parents to make them aware that these products should be taken as directed and when they are no longer needed they should be disposed of and not kept around the home.”

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Photo courtesy of Riverside Police Department