Purple Drank in Today’s Popular Culture
Anyone into Hop Hop music knows what Purple Drank is. It’s a mixture of prescription cough syrup and Mountain Dew or other soda, usually with some Jolly Rancher candies mixed in and dissolved to give it color and flavor. The mixture even has its own preferred type of container – a styrofoam cup. This mixture – intoxicating and addicting – has long been a favorite of musicians in this genre.
But hopefully, anyone who knows about Purple Drank also knows that some prominent Hip Hop musicians have died or ended up in jail as a result of their addictions to this mixture. And also knows about the unpleasant or dangerous symptoms that can show up after this mixture is used. Like the loss of balance, loss of coordination, slow, slurred speech, slowed heart rate and addiction. There are some indications that Purple Drank (also called Lean, Syrup or Sizzurp) is involved in seizures and deaths from heart attack. And if Purple Drank is used along with other drugs like alcohol, the possibility of damage to health or death increases.
Despite the threat from this mixture, Purple Drank seems to be increasingly becoming part of today’s popular culture.
Purple Drank in Marketing
These days, you can find the name Purple Drank applied to a bottle of beer produced in Tampa, Florida. The Coppertail Brewing Company used this name for its new boysenberry-flavored beer. Purple Drank is also part of the name of an electronic dance music song from rapper and music producer Trill08 from North Carolina. The song features the sound effect of an effervescent drink being poured into a cup.
It’s also the name of a company in Virginia that re-tunes Mazdas for high performance. On the social media platform Vine that features six-second videos on any subject, a number of these short videos seem to feature mixtures of Sprite or other soda and cough medicine and the use of this mixture.
There’s even an amateur sports team in Michigan that’s made the questionable choice of naming itself Purple Drank. Not surprisingly, they finished last in their league.
In other words, it’s easy to find references to this addictive substance throughout popular culture. The widespread popularity of the mixture has a lot to do with Lil Wayne and other Hip Hop musicians.
Lil Wayne and his Purple Drank Habit
For years, Lil Wayne admitted to an addiction to Purple Drank, also called Sizzurp. He featured it in his songs and in interviews, talked openly about his reliance on the drink. In any videos of the rapper, you can always hear the raspy, slow voice common to Drank users. But in 2013, he was hospitalized multiple times for serious seizures. Some of those close to him felt that the years of Purple Drank abuse contributed to this new problem. And then in 2014, he admitted that he had quit using it on the advice of his doctor, while he was in treatment for the seizures.
Not surprisingly, the instructions for promethazine, one of the main drugs in the prescription cough medications used in this way, note that convulsions and seizures are possible side effects of the drug.
For all his early years as a leader in Hip Hop music, Lil Wayne may have inspired fans to follow in his tracks despite the danger of using Purple Drank. But in the end, the health problems forced him to quit. Would the fans that followed him into to using it also be able to quit?
The problem with following someone else’s example of using drugs is that the new user never knows risks he’s taking. There are no warnings of health problems like a seizure, overdose, addiction or heart problems. It’s just the chance a person takes when he decides to use the same drug as some public figure he admires. In this case, maybe Lil Wayne’s decision to quit using Purple Drank also influenced his fans to get sober. If you’re using Purple Drank, hopefully, his experience will help you to quit before it’s too late.
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