The epidemic of opioid addiction which is gathering momentum, has led to another form of drug abuse that few experts saw coming: Addicts who cannot lay hands on painkillers are instead turning to Imodium and other anti-diarrhea medications.
They call it the poor man’s meth.
The active ingredient, loperamide, offers a cheap high if it is consumed in huge amounts. But in addition to being uncomfortably constipating, it can be toxic, even deadly, to the heart.
A report published online in Annals of Emergency Medicine recently described two deaths in New York after loperamide abuse. And overdoses have been linked to deaths or life-threatening irregular heartbeats in at least a dozen other cases in five American states in the last 18 months.
Most physicians just recently realized loperamide could be abused. There is not much data on the problem, but many toxicologists and emergency department doctors suspect that it is more widespread than available reports suggest.
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