No, it isn’t. Sometimes people get confused because DXM’s stereoisomer (basically, the mirror image molecule), called levomethorphan, is an opiate. In two dimensions the molecules look identical, but in three dimensions, they are mirror images of each other. DXM no more fits into opiate receptors than a left-hand threaded screw will fit into a right-hand threaded nut.

In fact, DXM doesn’t bind at any opiate receptors, doesn’t have opiate painkilling effects, and isn’t cross-tolerant with opiates. It is only out of sheer chance that when DXM was invented, its origins were among the opiates; DXM’s cough suppressant effects are completely different in mechanism from the cough suppressant effects of opiates.

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