NZNTV

SPRITE. Purple Drank is an illegal recreational drink popular in the Southern United States rap community, whose main ingredients originally consisted of prescription strength cough syrup, containing codeine and promethazine, and either a carbonated soft drink (generally Sprite) or fruit juice.

The purple-ish hue of Purple Drank comes from the dyes in the cough syrup. Recently, the term has expanded to cover mixtures including over-the-counter cough syrup and vodka in place of prescription cough syrup. Other terms for Purple Drank include Barre, Oil, Purple Tonic, Lean (or Southern Lean,) Drank, and Syrup (which is sometimes slangly pronounced as Sizzurp.) 

The active ingredient of purple drank is codeine, an opiate medication contained in prescription strength cough syrups due to its antitussive properties. Some prescription cough syrups also contain anti-histamine medications, such as promethazine, which have a mild sedative effect. When taken in large quantities, both medications can lead to sedation and altered levels of consciousness. 

Houston producer DJ Screw first popularized the concoction, which is widely attributed as a source of inspiration for the « chopped & screwed » style of hip hop music. Originally, the active ingredient of « Syrup » was cough syrup containing promethazine and codeine. The concoction first gained popularity in the underground Houston, Texas rap scene and later spread to other southern states.

When we talk about these products, the most common names are like, “Syrup,” or “Drank,” or “Lean.”  Which are common street terms for this. So if you get a kid talking about, “Leaning on Syrup,” or even talking about, “Gonna go get me some Syrup,” these ought to be key words to parents that these kids are using codeine cough syrup.

The drug codeine is a dissociative drug sort of like Ketamine, in which your mind and your body kind of separate. So they are famous drugs of abuse to begin with. And they talk about doing it, they talk about leaning on syrup, because if you sip on it all day long it is like getting very drunk. And you literally have to lean on something to stand up.

Because it is codeine, which is a narcotic, it can cause addiction. If you drink too much of it, it can cause seizures, which we have seen recently, and you might well end up in treatment. We have people in treatment in Texas every year who have gotten addicted to codeine.  And once you get addicted, you can’t go into withdrawal and just cut it off and go cold turkey, you’re going to be very ill for a while.

So you are messing with something that can be very dangerous in terms of their treatment, and their future life.

« purple drank made ma bank » 

« purple tonic got me leanin »