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The UT School of Public Health's Ronald J. Peters, Dr.P.H., assistant professor of behavioral sciences is trying to do something about a popular drug craze among at-risk youth expanding from Texas to the rest of the nation. Called "lean," "drank," "barre," "purple stuff," or "syrup," the drug is a combination of prescription codeine and promethazine hydrochloride cough syrup (PHCS), soda and candy.Kids purchase the syrup from street dealers, mix it with a soft drink - usually Sprite - add hard candy for flavor and consume it as a recreational drug.An estimated 25 percent of at-risk Houston youth have reported using the drug, which evolved as a result of a popular Houston-based underground music scene known
as "screw."The name came from D.J. Screw, a Houston disc jockey who created and promoted the underground music in the late 1980s, and who later died from the drug. Peters reported on his research in The Journal of Drug Research. He found that the majority of users were male African-Americans, but the craze is fast crossing all race and economic boundaries. "Parents need to know that this is something that has become popular and is considered to be normal among children of all races," he says.
