The reputation is reflected in a trial that begins Tuesday of six pharmacists charged with illegally dispensing the highly addictive prescription cough syrup codeine with promethazine.
About 30 percent of the teenagers in the Houston area have used the syrup at least once, says Ron Peters, a professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.
The figures from Peter's 2004 study top his 2003 study, which show 25 percent of teenagers at six alternative schools in Harris County have used the drug at least once.
"Anything over 4 percent in the last 30 days is a major drug problem," Peters says.
Troy Jefferson, who heads a drug treatment center for children and adolescents at Riverside General Hospital in Houston, says those figures may be too conservative.
Jefferson says that, out of more than 5,000 teens treated at the clinic in the past seven years, as many as 35 percent have tried prescription cough syrup more than once.
