Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Utah AHEAD of the curve

I was surprised to see this headline in the paper this morning: "Youth's latest cheap high: cough medicine." The article states: "A new study concludes that robo-tripping is sharply on the rise among teenagers." What surprised me was that kids in Utah have been abusing Robotussin for years. Sure the state is backwards in regards to gender equality, progressive politics, and sex education, but at least they're ahead of the curve in finding a loophole in the Mormon prohibition of alcohol. Despite the culture equating alcoholic beverages with a ticket to Hell, those rascally teenagers found a readily available alternative that is easy to fool parents about. Robo-tripping (getting high off Robotussin) has been popular in Utah since at least the early 90's. I remember some of my cousins from rural Utah... and I mean almost AMISH rural... telling me about major parties the high schoolers would throw where they gathered to drink cough syrup. In fact it was such a problem there that a policeman was assigned to that very problem, which invariably came up every weekend. His task was so well known that he was dubbed "Robo Cop," not because of the metal plate in his head that he got in 'Nam, but because he was always on the prowl for Robotussin.

I myself had a brush with the seedy underworld of cough medicine abuse in Utah. One time, my roommate was pretty sick so I took him to the grocery store to get some cold medicine. We were standing there looking at all the options when some guy came in and grabbed a couple of botles of the store brand equivalent to Robotussin non-creatively called "Tussin." He told us, "This is the good shit." Always open to the endorsement of teen drug abusers, my roommate bought some. He decided to take the meds before we got home, and without a spoon to measure it, he just drank some straight from the bottle... and by some I mean almost half of it. By the time we got back to the apartment, he was so drunk he could barely make it up the stairs. He was staggering along, with me trying to support his tottering frame, all the while him slurring incomprehensible phrases. The gossip mill at the apartment complex hadn't had so much fodder since a couple months prior when some guy tried to kill himself by ODing on Tylenol. Evidently he liked the feeling, because the rest of the bottle was gone by the next day.

After I read today's article, I'm feeling so in-the-know in knowing about this "new" trend almost ten years before it became popular. Maybe I'll have to call my Utah cousins and find out what the latest thing in drugs is. (Now THAT'S a sentence you probably thought you'd never read!)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well the newest trend in Utah is nothing new to those of us that don't live there. Its actually been going on for a while, but believe it or not its Meth. Do a search on google news for Meth and Utah and you will be amazed...

Unknown said...

If what you are saying is true Jeremy, what other trends (besides Meth) are fresh in Utah? It never hurts to get ahead of the curve for backwater Portland.

For example, what is the cool new phrase in Utah, next fashion trend, undiscovered musician, or food-borne disease outbreak?

Anonymous said...

Let's see, here are a few of my personal favorites - fry sauce and/or ranch dressing on almost everything; whole neighborhoods with identical, home-made lawn decorations; religious t-shirts and accessories ("a fun way to share the gospel"); family stickers on the back of minivans with all the people lined up; family photos where everone is wearing chambray; day planners; the words dang, shoot, awesome and sweet spirit...

Anonymous said...

Chambray? As in:

chambray |ˈ sh amˌbrā; -brē| noun a linen-finished gingham cloth with a white weft and a colored warp, producing a mottled appearance. ORIGIN early 19th cent.(originally U.S.): formed irregularly from Cambrai, the name of a town in northern France, where it was originally made. Compare with cambric.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chambray&btnG=Search+Images


Okay I am officially glad I do not live in Utah - those are so like what Al Gore wore in like what 1990?