Semi-charmed kind of life.

This afternoon, I was in line at the grocery store. I purchased chicken strips, rice, an assortment of crackers, and butter. I stood behind three people in the Express Lane with my grocery basket, iPod headphones in my ears blaring "Raspberry Beret" by Prince. My eyes wandered all over the store, from the two girls in self-checkout next to me that got in their line after I had gotten in mine, to the cashier donning the gold shimmering sunglasses with the word "Ezekiel" tattooed on the nape of his neck, and finally the man standing in front of me.

There was nothing particularly interesting about his appearance: maybe mid-40s, short, dirty blonde hair, and wasn't exceptionally tall nor notably short. The only thing I found curious about him was the way he was carrying his seemingly heavy, overburdenous basket and his extremely thick, khaki colored trenchcoat, but seeing as it has been about 30°F all day, the latter wasn't particularly out of the ordinary. He was carrying his basket with both hands placed in front of his thighs. I couldn't help but look, but there was a wad of cash rolled up in one hand and a lot of white rectangular boxes in the basket. When it was his turn to be checked out by the cashier, he dumped well over a dozen boxes of a generic brand knockoff of Robitussin DM onto the conveyor belt. I was completely in awe. No one else seemed to notice, not the asian kid behind me unloading his boxes of macaroni and cheese from his basket, not the two girls checking out their own groceries next to me, not even the "Ezekiel"-inked cashier scanning all the boxes of 'Tussin.

The man paid the cashier in cash, took his grocery bags full of cough syrup, and walked straight to the SunTrust ATM to withdraw more cash. I was so distracted by the man and his massive purchase, that I didn't even hear the cashier ask me for my customer card. I walked right to the pharmacy and asked the the pharmacist if there was a maximum quantity of products containing Dextromethorphan that one was allowed to purchase at once. She replied that there isn't, and apparently there isn't an age restriction either, but that particular grocery store checks to ensure that the purchaser is over the age of 18.

This startles me to no end. For the nondrug-savvy population, products containing "DXM", typically most of the cough syrups that have the letters "DM" at the end (ie: Robitussin DM, Dimetapp DM), are used amongst youth and others addicted to such substances of the like to achieve a "high" of sorts. The inexperienced user typically just chugs as much of the syrup (about 2 full bottles) to get high, the more seasoned DXM users extract it out of the syrup to achieve its full effect without the medication grogginess (in case you're interested in how this godforsaken stuff is made, instructions can be found here). With enough cough syrup, one can extract DXM and have an experience somewhere between an LSD-like "trip" and a crystal meth-like "high". With proper storage, you can pawn this substance off onto others for a small profit.

Maybe it's not my place at all to voice an opinion on other people's actions if it is legal, but I don't understand how people can get away with doing stuff like this. Maybe a law should be passed that all DM containing products should be kept behind the counter, maybe there should be a maximum allowed quantity purchase. But then the same legislature would have to be passed for whipped cream cans (so as to prevent the masses from doing "whippits"). DXM has not been proven to create a physiological addiction, but it's been shown to create psychological addictions. The user gets used to the feeling of being "high", the accessibility of the drug, and the ease of increasing dosage should they begin to develop tolerance. It still causes brain damage. It still causes so many adverse reactions and literally hurts your body, don't people know it's just not worth it to put your body through it only for a few hours of euphoria?

Everyone is given one body, what you do with yours is up to you, but I want to be the one to make sure you don't continue to abuse it.