Sizzurp: A Dangerous Teen Drug
Doctors are warning of a cough syrup concoction called sizzurp that young people are abusing to get high. Teens are making the potentially deadly mix, using soda, candy and prescription cough syrup. To make matters worse, celebrities are glorifying the mix in music.
Known in some circles as “sizzurp,” “purple drank,” or “dirty sprite,” the mixture of prescription cough syrup with codeine, benzodiazepines and a soft drink has been used and sung about by rappers since the mid-1990s. Now, many law enforcement officials in states such as West Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina are finding that teens are abusing the substance and presumably being influenced by the music they listen to.
The sizzurp drink is highly addictive, and codeine and promethazine can be deadly when mixed with booze or consumed in high doses. Dextromethorphan, the active ingredient in most over-the-counter cough syrups, can cause increased heart rate, fever and liver damage when taken at sizzurp levels, which can reach 25 times the recommended dose.
Hollywood reporter recently indicated that, “Rapper Pimp C died in 2008 of a cough-syrup overdose, according to the L.A. County coroner’s office. In May 2013, Lil Wayne was hospitalized for seizures relating to his abuse of the drug, leading to multiple media reports that the rapper came close to dying during the medical incident.”
Dr. Deni Carise (an addiction psychologist) told the New York Daily News, “We’ve seen patients who take enough of the medication (sizzurp) to have side effects similar to LSD trips with extreme mood swings, hallucinations, paranoia and very risky behavior. In extreme cases this has led to psychotic-like experiences that endanger the user and those around him or her.”
Sizzurp abuse among teens is becoming more prevalent. A 2012 survey found that 5.5 percent of 12th graders said they’d gotten high off sizzurp. So, although teens may think that there is no harm in taking medications because they are prescribed by doctors, they need to be educated that consuming any sort of drug in a way that it is not intended is always dangerous. Like any other opioid, sizzurp can cause death if taken in too high a quantity.