Nov. 10, 1996. Evan Dando of the Lemonheads waxes poetic on the virtues of Robitussin while being interviewed by Matthew Pinfield on MTV's "120 Minutes."

In a dimly-lighted house in Kent sit two men and one woman.

Gene (not his real name ­ all the cough syrup abusers in this story asked to remain anonymous) is just under 6 feet tall and rail thin. His jet black hair is spiked with hair goop, and a growth of hair spurts from his chin. He wears jeans and a body-hugging Kiss "Destroyer" T-shirt he's probably had since junior high.

Snowflake is about Gene's height and also rail thin. Her short hair is bleached blond, with a long strand of bangs that repeatedly fall in front of her face. She wears a long-sleeve, black T-shirt, jeans and Doc Marten boots.

Stymie is 5 feet 10 inches tall and stocky. His hair also is bleached blonde. Right now, it looks like he just got out of bed, or more than likely, off the couch. He wears a stained T-shirt and jeans.

The three have meticulously laid out all the essentials for this evening's entertainment. Cigarettes and an ashtray, glasses of water, a pipe, a bag of marijuana, three four-ounce bottles of Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough syrup and two boxes of Drixoral Cough Liquid Caps are placed on an oversized coffee table laden with burning candles. Hawkwind plays on the stereo.

Gene is a 23-year-old Kent State student who is familiar with the "trip" they are about to have. He has pulled out a stack of records and CDs, including Social Distortion, Iron Butterfly and the Rolling Stones, and placed them next to the stereo. This is necessary because in about two hours, none of them is going to be able to move ­ at least not with much coordination or, at times, purpose.

Each grabs a bottle of cough syrup, making a toast and slugging it down. Their faces contort at the taste, and they periodically sip the water to kill it. But they manage to finish off their bottles, and then they grab some Drixoral and swallow five to 10 capsules each. The cough medicine is all gone in under an hour.

Within 45 minutes of ingestion, Stymie puts on a flowery, calf-length, polyester muumuu, and the drugs take hold. For the next nine hours, they sit in the living room hallucinating and going through phases of catatonia, contemplation, laughing fits and paranoia.

The only light on is one that Gene calls the robo-light, which is hidden behind stacked stereo equipment. It changes colors and blinks. Eventually, the candles will become too bright and be extinguished. The drug surging through their brains is dextromethorphan (DXM), commonly found in many brands of over-the-counter cough medicines. Gene says it is "the over-the-counter underground drug of the '90s."

DXM has been available for more than 30 years for various medicinal purposes. Subgroups of the counter-culture have perpetuated the information of its misuse for nearly as long.

Today, the Internet spreads the information worldwide, and icons of pop culture sing and talk about it through mass media. Cliques of "syrup heads" regularly get together and do the "Robo-shuffle," which refers to a popular brand name of cough syrup and the trouble users of high doses encounter with mobility. The ease of access to DXM can be unsettling when its potential for misuse is realized.

William White, a 25-year-old computer science graduate of Ohio University, has produced a web site, "The Dextromethorphan FAQ: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Dextromethorphan (DXM)."

White has spent more than 2,000 hours researching DXM and its effects on humans. He has documented all his research and has about 200 medical references to back up his work. He also has interviewed and tested numerous DXM abusers.

White's interest in DXM came about by accident.

"I was sick with the flu," White says."I misread the directions on a bottle of cough syrup and drank two shots of it instead of two teaspoons. I got a buzz from it and was surprised." He says that his awareness of music and motion became heightened.

This incident and his interest in the human brain led him to study neuropharmacology, with special attention to DXM. While researching on the Internet, White began to see web sites that provided potentially harmful misinformation about DXM.

White's site contains all the information necessary for a person to have a "safe" DXM trip. It includes lists of cough syrups and capsules, warnings for drug interactions, methods for extracting DXM from syrups and detailed medical explanations of how the drug affects the brain and nervous system.

"I don't advocate recreational drug use for anybody," White says. "But I'd rather have one person tripping safely than 100 people getting sick or damaging themselves because of wrong information. I have spoken to people who have liver damage because they didn't know what they were doing."

Gene is aware of the dangers from cough syrup misuse.

"There were two high school kids in my hometown who died from drinking cough syrup with acetaminophen in it," Gene says. "They (the police) wrote it off as a double suicide, but those kids were just trying to get off."

White's web page explicitly states the dangers of ingesting large doses of acetaminophen and other drugs commonly mixed with DXM in cough syrups. It explains that the only "safe" cough medicines to misuse are those in which the only active ingredient is DXM. So why, with all the inherent dangers, are people abusing cough medicines? Because some people enjoy the effects it has on them.

Stymie, the 24-year-old syrup head who introduced Gene to DXM, began mega-dosing cough syrup at the age of 14. He learned about it from his friend's older brother and first tried it "because we were underage and couldn't get any beer."

Stymie says mega-dosing cough syrup is one of the world's best kept secrets. "It's like being on acid (LSD), morphine, and drunk off your ass and in a vacuum," is how he explains the feeling he gets from DXM.

Kirk, Stymie's 21-year-old roommate, a Kent State student and fellow syrup head, joined the conversation. "I take cough syrup for no other reason than getting as fucked up as possible," Kirk says."It's everything that I thought taking acid would be, but acid never was."

Stymie shared a memorable syrup experience he had with his roommates last Christmas.

"There were a bunch of us on cough syrup. We all had laundry baskets on our heads and we were flying in the Millennium Falcon," Stymie says, referring to hallucinations of flying Han Solo's ship from "Star Wars."

"The Christmas tree had a space helmet on it, and it was our god."

When under the influence of cough syrup, Stymie always sees pink specks on the walls. Sound takes on an echo-like quality, and movement becomes difficult while on DXM. "One time, I was going to the bathroom, and there were two doors. I had to stop and close my eyes and reassess the situation," he says.

The only residual side effects he has noticed are that it makes him, "slow, dumb and tired" the next day.

Stymie has been abusing cough medicine about 10 times a year for the past 10 years. He usually drinks two four-ounce bottles of syrup and takes 10 capsules in one sitting.

He can rattle all the brands of "safe" cough syrup off the top of his head. He has a small file of cough syrup information containing two pages of handwritten notes on how to extract DXM from capsules. This process breaks down the DXM into a concentrated powder so it can be snorted, smoked, injected or swallowed. However, Stymie says he has never used these methods.

Gene has been misusing cough syrup about once a month for the past year. He first tried it out of curiosity. "I thought it was nonsense, so one night I decided to try it," he says.

He describes his trips as a "hallucinogenic, fourth-dimensional experience. It gives you the essence of space travel without leaving the house."

"I consider it fun," Gene says, "but that's my kind of fun."

Snowflake, a 19-year-old Kent State student, first tried cough syrup after Gene told her about it.

"I didn't feel out of control, just really wasted. I felt like a vegetable," says Snowflake, describing her first DXM overdose. She also vomited.

In the past nine months, she has misused DXM seven times.

"I usually take a box of pills, and I smoke pot. If it doesn't kick in, I'll drink some cough syrup but usually just the pills," Snowflake says.

Snowflake explains how her body reacts from mega-dosing cough syrup.

"It's typically like a deep relaxation. Your body is relaxed, but your mind is doing all kinds of crazy stuff," she says.

White says cough syrup is definitely not a party drug."You don't tend to move or commit crimes on DXM," he says.

People high on DXM usually look drunk and may exhibit "socially inappropriate behavior" such as lack of movement for long periods of time, glassy-eyed staring and an inability to speak.

DXM belongs to a group of drugs classified as dissociative anesthetics. "Dissociatives are a dangerous class of drugs," White says. PCP (angel dust), cocaine and amphetamines also belong to this category.

Dr. Martin Schechter, chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM), explains how dissociative anesthetics work. "They allow a patient to, in a sense, come out of their bodies. With the management of pain by other drugs, surgical procedures can be performed," Schechter says.

"They are not used much anymore. Nearly 50 percent of patients had hallucinations after they came out of surgery."

DXM's medicinal uses include the treatment of Lou Gehrig's Disease, applications against cancer, chronic pain management and prevention of the pain and damage caused by shingles.

Schechter explains that long-term use of high doses can cause some people to behave like schizophrenics. The drug causes certain brain receptors to shut down and others to become over stimulated. Eventually, the overactive cells shut themselves down. These cells can shut down permanently with regular use of the drug.

"I met a three-bottle-a-day person who had trouble walking a year after he quit," White says. "The damage is real and may be irreversible."

Although DXM is generally not physically addictive, daily use can create a psychological addiction, Schechter says.

White does not forsee the drug companies pulling DXM off the shelves. "They're making too much money off it," he says.

Carol Dornbush, director of public affairs for A.H. Robins Consumer Products, the manufacturer of Robitussin, says it would not be ethical to pull DXM off the market.

"The products are safe when you use them as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) says to," Dornbush says. "It (cough syrup misuse) is of great concern to us because we are here for people's health and quality of life ... You're talking about a small number of people who abuse the drug."

Dr. Patrick Janovick, a Kent State University physician, says he has not found anyone he would call "truly addicted to DXM."

"As for the recreational use of DXM, we have not experienced it at all," Janovick says. "The stuff tastes like crap. I hate to say it, but on our campus there are a lot easier ways to get high."

Janovick finds it hard to believe that somebody can get that "messed up" on a bottle of cough syrup. "You can go downtown to the bars and drink four shots of whiskey and get the same effects."

Schechter, the NEOUCOM pharmacologist, shares a similar disbelief when confronted with the notion that people are misusing cough syrup just for the fun of it.

"I'm sorry to hear that it is coming to this. This is really surprising to me, but it allows one to account for the large number of people on the Internet who relate their experiences under the influence of the drug," Schechter says. "If you are abusing it ­ if you are looking to go sideways, that is hallucinate, there are many other drugs out there that do a better job ­ but they are illegal."

Schechter explains that the hyperactivity and hallucinations come close to being classified as toxic psychosis. Furthermore, interaction of DXM with alcohol and other central nervous system depressants may add to the depressant effect and lead to a state of coma.

"They are taking a big chance of overdose. Some people don't get off right away, so they take more and the side effects may outweigh the dissociative effects. Respiratory depression is a possibility at that point," Schechter says.

Schechter says recent reports state that there may be a drug interaction between DXM and Prozac. The result of the interaction can result in what is known as "serotonin syndrome," and can be fatal.

Schechter warns of the long-lasting effects of DXM.

"People getting off on this drug better not have anything important to do the next day. It is metabolized quite slowly by the body," he says, explaining why Stymie feels "slow, dumb and tired" the day after a cough syrup binge.

Gene laughed when he heard about Janovick's comparison of cough syrup to alcohol.

"That's why it's underground," he says. "Nobody believes you can get this fucked up on cough syrup."

Kevin G. Brosien is a senior magazine journalism major. He doesn't own a working car and he lives with his dog, Stiv, and a bunch of carpenter ants.