Coricidin is used to alleviate coughs and includes chlorphenamine for people with high blood pressure. Other versions of Coricidin are used to reduce fever or as an expectorant.
Recreational use
Coricidin is sometimes used in high doses as a recreational drug because it contains the psychoactive drugdextromethorphan. In this context, Coricidin is referred to as C's, Corey (Cori), Red Devils (Red D's), Skittles (they are the same size and color of a red skittle) Scroopies, or Triple C's (the coricidin used for recreational activity used to have three c's on the front, which has now been replaced by two c's). Use of Coricidin for this purpose became dangerous after chlorphenamine, an anticholinergic that causes serious reactions in high doses which is worsened by the fact that dextromethorphan and chlorpheniramine are both metabolized by CYP2D6 isozyme of Cytochrome P450 thus increasing blood levels of both by inhibiting metabolism and increasing blood serum concentrations, replaced the less harmful pseudoephedrine, which the Cough and Cold variety contained prior to 2002. Fatalities have resulted from overdoses of chlorphenamine.[1]
Use in popular music
Two Coricidin bottles used as guitar slides (second and third from left)
In the 1960s, blues-rock guitarist Duane Allman (1946-1971) of The Allman Brothers Band began using an empty glass Coricidin bottle as a guitar slide, finding it to be just the right size and shape for this purpose. Other prominent slide guitarists, such as Derek Trucks, Rory Gallagher, and Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd adopted the Coricidin bottle as well, but such bottles eventually went out of production in the early 1980s (although replicas have been produced since 1985).[2][3]
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