Skittling

Skittling is a slang term which refers to the abuse of cough syrup. The term comes from the fact that cough medicine pills are often red or brightly colored and resemble Skittles candy. “Skittling” is taking extremely large doses of cough medicine to get high. The "high" is caused by taking a large amount of dextromethorphan (DXM), a common active ingredient found in many cough medications. This sort of abuse -- whether it's called cough medicine abuse, or skittling -- can be dangerous.

Ally on Skittling:
“I started using skittles about two and a half months ago. My friends had all tried them so I wanted to see what the deal was with it. The first time I took it, I swallowed Coricidin Cough and Cold and I was so messed up. I couldn’t feel anything and every thing that stressed me out was gone. I loved it, so I gradually began to use more and more finally I took eight and I had this out of body experience. Recently, my mom found out about me abusing them and found my skittles stash and took them away. I have been clean for a week now and I’m having withdrawal -- I’m lightheaded and shaky; it’s truly scary. I never thought something like this would happen to me and yet it did. I never thought I would do drugs at all of any sort and now I have an addiction. I’m glad my mom stopped it before something even more serious could have happened to me.”