Lean On Me: Emoji Death Threats and Instagram's Codeine Kingpin
(vice is hella dry snitching with this: nonetheless good read.)
Illustration by Simon Greiner
As I write this, a drug dealer wants me dead. It might be spelled out in Emoji, but a death threat’s a death threat.
There is an Atlanta-based drug dealer who is convinced I ripped him off for at least a few pints of Actavis-brand prescription cough syrup—a potent mixture of codeine and promethazine. You and I know it as “lean” or “drank.”
I’ve never consumed lean. I’ve never met this dealer. I’ve never even been to Atlanta.
This entire “encounter” took place on Instagram, where hundreds of accounts are selling lean, weed, and a variety of prescription pills in a virtual open-air drug market. Many of these accounts aren’t even private.
Remember Silk Road? That mysterious, deep-web drug market? (Which, by the way, was recently shut down and seized by the United States government) It’s kind of like that, but on the same iPhone app that you use to take a photo of your brunch. The same app that Facebook bought for a billion dollars, or roughly 2.85 million pints of Actavis, the leading lean brand.
They sell it, often overnight it, and you can text them your order.
/ / /
Lean, Oil, Mud, Texas Tea, Dirty Sprite, Drank, Sizzurp—the archetypal Styrofoam cup filled with purple liquid you’re picturing is a cocktail of promethazine and codeine, mixed with Sprite, and garnished with a Jolly Rancher. Lean is often touted by rappers and, like hip-hop itself, it took off in an isolated area (Houston) and propagated itself outwardly. H-Town luminaries like DJ Screw and UGK’s Pimp C championed the stuff—and they also died from overdoses.
And, recently, everything is purple. Houston-based rapper Fat Tony—who claims to never drink lean himself—says, “[Lean] has a long history of being associated with rap music because of DJ Screw and Houston music, but now, it's so popular now because every rap song mentions lean.” The 25-year-old continues, “Look at the top 20 tapes on like livemixtapes and I guarantee that every one of them has several lean mentions, whether it's a Lil Wayne tape, a Jeremih tape, a Chief Keef tape, a Migos tape, a Rich Homie Quan tape, a Kevin Gates tape, an A$AP tape, or TDE artists like Schoolboy Q or Ab-Soul—even Odd Future artists like Mellowhype. It's more popular in rap music than I've ever seen it before.”
But rappers aren’t just rapping about it; they’re also publicly opening up regarding their troubles with it. Gucci Mane recently went off on Twitter after experiencing hospitalization and arrest.
“I just wanna man up right now and take this time to apologize to my family, friends, the industry and most of all my fans,” the 33-year-old tweeted. “I'm sorry! I've been drinking lean for 10+ years and I must admit it has destroyed me. I wanna be the first rapper to admit I'm addicted to lean and that shit ain't no joke. I can barely remember all the things I've done and said...I'm currently incarcerated but I will be going to rehab because I need help.”
Clinically speaking, promethazine is an antihistamine, not unlike Benadryl. It’s often used as a sedative or to treat nausea, migraine or powerful allergic reactions. It makes you really sleepy and dissociated quickly, and magnifies the already intense effects of codeine. You can cool off in a swimming pool, or you can sit in air conditioning. But if you walk dripping wet into an ice-cold house, the feeling is magnified a thousand times over. You get the picture.
But for recreational use, like a Tom Collins, the ingredients and measurements can vary case by case, so we will speak in general terms.
Codeine is derived from the opium poppy seed, the same plant that’s been used and abused for thousands of years. Like heroin, morphine, and oxycodone, codeine is an opiate. They are addictive and have a penchant for killing or otherwise ruining young musicians. “Texas lean isn't just a rap thing,” Tony says. “My mom is 51 and she's been seeing people sip lean her whole life. Her grandfather and his friends sipped lean back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. As soon as that medication came out, people started to drink it. From any kind of jazz artist to blues artist to club goer, it's for the same kind of artist who would do heroin.”
But like other drugs, musicians point to it as an aid with creativity.
“I just go to the studio,” says Baton Rouge-based rapper Kevin Gates, 27, in excerpts of an unpublished interview from earlier this year obtained by Noisey. “I like pineapple Sunkist. I don't drink cold drinks for the flavor, I just want whatever tastes good with promethazine in it. I drink syrup. I do drugs excessively, because I deal with depression. I don't bother nobody—I don't let my depression bother other people. I just do drugs and record. I started drinking syrup when I was 14.”
Obviously, he’s not the only one.
“A lot of the music I made on lean was slowed down,” says Mac Miller, 21, who recently spoke publicly about quitting the drug due to addiction. “It put me out of the fast-paced industry, and allowed me to put a stop to everything I was doing. It put me in some weird emotional places. I'm not saying it was positive or negative. Macadellic has a lot of monotone delivery since it makes you numb and makes you lack emotion.”
Mondre M.A.N., who’s 22, of Oakland-based hip-hop duo Main Attrakionz—who’ve released a series of mixtapes consistently referencing purple imagery—explains what it’s like to consume lean: “Alright, so if you been sippin’, if you really been sippin’ this shit, and you ain’t had none for like a day or a two or three, your stomach gonna start hurting. You're gonna want some more lean. It's like heroin. Liquid heroin, man.”
"I think people definitely understand how bad it is," says Ty Dolla $ign, 28, whose most recent mixtape Beach House 2 touches explicitly on lean culture, specifically with the track "Still Sippin'." "People just don't really give a shit. It tastes so good and makes you feel so good it's like, fuck it. It's like cigarettes. Everybody knows cigarettes are terrible but they still smoke and shit."
Long-term effects include a shift in endorphins, and, of course, the possibility of death.
“Okay, so man, I wake up,” Mondre says. “I probably already have a cup in the refrigerator. You sip it and you're gonna feel it hit your stomach, you feel me? The thing though, the shit gonna keep you calm, keep you cool. But if you got a busy day though or your girlfriend is in your ear or you got problems or some shit, you gonna get really mad real fast man. You're gonna start flashing and shit.”
When alcohol is mixed with opiates, the effect is further intensified. Breathing becomes shallow. The body doesn’t take in enough oxygen. “They say don't drink it with no liquor but you know I do that shit too,” Mondre says. “Once I put the lean away man, I start sippin' some liquor and shit and that liquor intensify the lean and shit you know and then you really want to go to sleep.”
The three most prevalent brands are Actavis, Hi-Tech, and Qualitest. If Actavis is Moët, Qualitest and Hi-Tech are more like André.
“If you go to your doctor, they might give you some Hi-Tech; that's the red kind,” Mondre says. “Not too many doctors gonna prescribe you with that purple [Actavis] no more. You gotta find that in the streets.”
But in 2013, finding something “in the streets” might require nothing more than turning on your iPhone. Pusha T, the 36 year old rapper whose built a career on music fueled with drug-dealing references—and whose former manager Anthony "Geezy" Gonzalez was sentenced to 32 years in prison for drug-trafficking in April 2009—candidly (and obviously) advises against being public with illegal activity.
"I'm sure once it hits the fan, those involved will be very sorry that they used Instagram," he says. "I personally know that federal agents look at Instagrams, they look at Twitters. They use those things to specifically track you. They watch your viral videos. My video for “Exodus 23:1” was shown throughout the federal system. It was taken to a prison, and [officials] set it up, and they had prisoners watch the video and say, 'Look, we know this. We know that. We know he's responsible for such and such and so and so.' So, I wouldn't do that, guys."
Prices for the drug vary wildly on the street and on Instagram. The rates run anywhere from $250 to $400. Fat Tony says a pint can easily run $1,000 in Houston. Mondre says the last price he saw was $200 in Oakland. Ty$ says he's seen pints go for $1200 in Atlanta. A pint can last up to a week.
“Sip carefully,” notes Mondre.
/ / /
(vice is hella dry snitching with this: nonetheless good read.)
Illustration by Simon Greiner
As I write this, a drug dealer wants me dead. It might be spelled out in Emoji, but a death threat’s a death threat.
There is an Atlanta-based drug dealer who is convinced I ripped him off for at least a few pints of Actavis-brand prescription cough syrup—a potent mixture of codeine and promethazine. You and I know it as “lean” or “drank.”
I’ve never consumed lean. I’ve never met this dealer. I’ve never even been to Atlanta.
This entire “encounter” took place on Instagram, where hundreds of accounts are selling lean, weed, and a variety of prescription pills in a virtual open-air drug market. Many of these accounts aren’t even private.
Remember Silk Road? That mysterious, deep-web drug market? (Which, by the way, was recently shut down and seized by the United States government) It’s kind of like that, but on the same iPhone app that you use to take a photo of your brunch. The same app that Facebook bought for a billion dollars, or roughly 2.85 million pints of Actavis, the leading lean brand.
They sell it, often overnight it, and you can text them your order.
/ / /
Lean, Oil, Mud, Texas Tea, Dirty Sprite, Drank, Sizzurp—the archetypal Styrofoam cup filled with purple liquid you’re picturing is a cocktail of promethazine and codeine, mixed with Sprite, and garnished with a Jolly Rancher. Lean is often touted by rappers and, like hip-hop itself, it took off in an isolated area (Houston) and propagated itself outwardly. H-Town luminaries like DJ Screw and UGK’s Pimp C championed the stuff—and they also died from overdoses.
And, recently, everything is purple. Houston-based rapper Fat Tony—who claims to never drink lean himself—says, “[Lean] has a long history of being associated with rap music because of DJ Screw and Houston music, but now, it's so popular now because every rap song mentions lean.” The 25-year-old continues, “Look at the top 20 tapes on like livemixtapes and I guarantee that every one of them has several lean mentions, whether it's a Lil Wayne tape, a Jeremih tape, a Chief Keef tape, a Migos tape, a Rich Homie Quan tape, a Kevin Gates tape, an A$AP tape, or TDE artists like Schoolboy Q or Ab-Soul—even Odd Future artists like Mellowhype. It's more popular in rap music than I've ever seen it before.”
But rappers aren’t just rapping about it; they’re also publicly opening up regarding their troubles with it. Gucci Mane recently went off on Twitter after experiencing hospitalization and arrest.
“I just wanna man up right now and take this time to apologize to my family, friends, the industry and most of all my fans,” the 33-year-old tweeted. “I'm sorry! I've been drinking lean for 10+ years and I must admit it has destroyed me. I wanna be the first rapper to admit I'm addicted to lean and that shit ain't no joke. I can barely remember all the things I've done and said...I'm currently incarcerated but I will be going to rehab because I need help.”
Clinically speaking, promethazine is an antihistamine, not unlike Benadryl. It’s often used as a sedative or to treat nausea, migraine or powerful allergic reactions. It makes you really sleepy and dissociated quickly, and magnifies the already intense effects of codeine. You can cool off in a swimming pool, or you can sit in air conditioning. But if you walk dripping wet into an ice-cold house, the feeling is magnified a thousand times over. You get the picture.
But for recreational use, like a Tom Collins, the ingredients and measurements can vary case by case, so we will speak in general terms.
Codeine is derived from the opium poppy seed, the same plant that’s been used and abused for thousands of years. Like heroin, morphine, and oxycodone, codeine is an opiate. They are addictive and have a penchant for killing or otherwise ruining young musicians. “Texas lean isn't just a rap thing,” Tony says. “My mom is 51 and she's been seeing people sip lean her whole life. Her grandfather and his friends sipped lean back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. As soon as that medication came out, people started to drink it. From any kind of jazz artist to blues artist to club goer, it's for the same kind of artist who would do heroin.”
But like other drugs, musicians point to it as an aid with creativity.
“I just go to the studio,” says Baton Rouge-based rapper Kevin Gates, 27, in excerpts of an unpublished interview from earlier this year obtained by Noisey. “I like pineapple Sunkist. I don't drink cold drinks for the flavor, I just want whatever tastes good with promethazine in it. I drink syrup. I do drugs excessively, because I deal with depression. I don't bother nobody—I don't let my depression bother other people. I just do drugs and record. I started drinking syrup when I was 14.”
Obviously, he’s not the only one.
“A lot of the music I made on lean was slowed down,” says Mac Miller, 21, who recently spoke publicly about quitting the drug due to addiction. “It put me out of the fast-paced industry, and allowed me to put a stop to everything I was doing. It put me in some weird emotional places. I'm not saying it was positive or negative. Macadellic has a lot of monotone delivery since it makes you numb and makes you lack emotion.”
Mondre M.A.N., who’s 22, of Oakland-based hip-hop duo Main Attrakionz—who’ve released a series of mixtapes consistently referencing purple imagery—explains what it’s like to consume lean: “Alright, so if you been sippin’, if you really been sippin’ this shit, and you ain’t had none for like a day or a two or three, your stomach gonna start hurting. You're gonna want some more lean. It's like heroin. Liquid heroin, man.”
"I think people definitely understand how bad it is," says Ty Dolla $ign, 28, whose most recent mixtape Beach House 2 touches explicitly on lean culture, specifically with the track "Still Sippin'." "People just don't really give a shit. It tastes so good and makes you feel so good it's like, fuck it. It's like cigarettes. Everybody knows cigarettes are terrible but they still smoke and shit."
Long-term effects include a shift in endorphins, and, of course, the possibility of death.
“Okay, so man, I wake up,” Mondre says. “I probably already have a cup in the refrigerator. You sip it and you're gonna feel it hit your stomach, you feel me? The thing though, the shit gonna keep you calm, keep you cool. But if you got a busy day though or your girlfriend is in your ear or you got problems or some shit, you gonna get really mad real fast man. You're gonna start flashing and shit.”
When alcohol is mixed with opiates, the effect is further intensified. Breathing becomes shallow. The body doesn’t take in enough oxygen. “They say don't drink it with no liquor but you know I do that shit too,” Mondre says. “Once I put the lean away man, I start sippin' some liquor and shit and that liquor intensify the lean and shit you know and then you really want to go to sleep.”
The three most prevalent brands are Actavis, Hi-Tech, and Qualitest. If Actavis is Moët, Qualitest and Hi-Tech are more like André.
“If you go to your doctor, they might give you some Hi-Tech; that's the red kind,” Mondre says. “Not too many doctors gonna prescribe you with that purple [Actavis] no more. You gotta find that in the streets.”
But in 2013, finding something “in the streets” might require nothing more than turning on your iPhone. Pusha T, the 36 year old rapper whose built a career on music fueled with drug-dealing references—and whose former manager Anthony "Geezy" Gonzalez was sentenced to 32 years in prison for drug-trafficking in April 2009—candidly (and obviously) advises against being public with illegal activity.
"I'm sure once it hits the fan, those involved will be very sorry that they used Instagram," he says. "I personally know that federal agents look at Instagrams, they look at Twitters. They use those things to specifically track you. They watch your viral videos. My video for “Exodus 23:1” was shown throughout the federal system. It was taken to a prison, and [officials] set it up, and they had prisoners watch the video and say, 'Look, we know this. We know that. We know he's responsible for such and such and so and so.' So, I wouldn't do that, guys."
Prices for the drug vary wildly on the street and on Instagram. The rates run anywhere from $250 to $400. Fat Tony says a pint can easily run $1,000 in Houston. Mondre says the last price he saw was $200 in Oakland. Ty$ says he's seen pints go for $1200 in Atlanta. A pint can last up to a week.
“Sip carefully,” notes Mondre.
/ / /
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