Lean
Composed of Promethazine with Codeine and sprite, it is one of the most popular beverages in modern day hip-hop. It is a mixture of cough syrup which can be bought under a doctors prescription in most parts of the world and mixing it with Sprite.
Why is it so dangerous?
When reading about it you would think it is a harmless drink since it's only a cough syrup, but that is where everyone is mistaken. Codeine is classed as a having a "High potential for abuse" which means that it can be highly addictive when the substance is abused. It is also possible to overdose on codeine and is more common than you may think, they mostly occur when mixed with benzodiazepines, cocaine and alcohol.
Codeine gets you high and makes you feel euphoria like MDMA, feeling of being drunk and your consciousness is altered, you start to perceive things in a different way than reality like on acid or LSD, these are the effects the user wants when taking it but at the same time there is a negative feeling with codeine, nausea and vomiting, dysphoria and confusion with several others. The more extreme effects can be slow breathing, heart rate drop and blood pressure can fall
Back in 2013 a famous rapper known as lil Wayne was in coma during 6 days due to a codeine overdose, he was often having seizures due to his over consumption. Since 2012 he had been to several hospitals due to these seizures until finally around March of 2013 Wayne found himself in a near death situation battling to get out of coma. Again in 2016 rapper was reported to have gone back into another coma but to this day it hasn't been confirmed whether it was due to a overdose or not, but reports say that while on a private flight 2 seizures where reported until finally he was hospitalized and the night before was seen in a club with three bottles of 16 Oz. of promethazine.
Lean has been in the hip-hop community for a few years now, since 2000's people have been making songs about it or even mentioning it in a verse as a luxurious item that they have. Artists also get they're own personalized jewellery with relation to lean or xanax, it has created huge controversy as parents and doctors say that they encourage they're audience to give these drugs a try.
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