logoalt Hacker News

robobrotoday at 4:12 PM6 repliesview on HN

Dextromethorphan is definitely not a placebo. Take enough and you'll go to space and meet God. Smaller doses produce euphoria and dissociation, which, even if they don't make the cough go away, makes it easier to tolerate a cold -- same reason antitussives have historically contained alcohol, cannabis extract (which may incidentally work as bronchodilator but was not the reason I imagine it was in antitussives)

Funny amphetamine used to be an over the counter cold medicine, which the article doesn't mention despite talking about the meth precursor?

Fine article but these two details stuck out to me while reading it.


Replies

Sohcahtoa82today at 4:31 PM

> Dextromethorphan is definitely not a placebo.

It definitely works for me. It'd be wild if for all 44 years of my life, it's only worked because of the placebo effect.

The article mentions phenylephrine, and that shit definitely doesn't work. Not even a placebo.

EPWN3Dtoday at 6:15 PM

Yup. The only upside to being sick is that I get to take NyQuil before going to sleep and have trippy as fuck dreams.

Melatonictoday at 6:11 PM

Very relevant username

nerdsnipertoday at 4:31 PM

The left enantiomer of methamphetamine (exact same chemical formula and structure, just mirror symmetry) is also an OTC decongestant.

show 1 reply
jona-ftoday at 4:21 PM

Came here to say this, the author is hating on dextromethorphan like he never robotripped before. But then, overdosing dxm isn't all that healthy and I'd recommend ketamine if you want to experiment like that.

show 1 reply