Codeine Coca-Cola

With teens always looking for new ways to gain that "high" they got the first time they dabbled in substance use, it is not surprising that a concoction referred to as "purple drank" has come into the scene. Purple drank is a mixture of some sort of soda or alcohol, sometimes a candy and the key ingredient is cough syrup that contains codeine. Until Researchers Agnich, Stogner, Miller and Marcum became the first group to study the use of purple drank outside of the Texas area, it was believed that African American males were the most common users of purple drank. This was believed to be the case because African American males were the only ones being sampled. However, Agnich, Stogner, Miller and Marcum wanted to perform scholarly research that allowed for a more general inference across the board of use among genders and ethnic backgrounds. The primary findings of the research indicate that of the 152 students who voluntarily reported using purple drank at least once, the majority to ended up being males (9.3%). The females using at least once came in at only 3.9%. However, their study did contradict what had previously been found by researchers as far as race was concerned. African Americans ranked in the lowest group of self-reports at 5.4% along with Whites (6.1%) and Asian Americans (5.1%). Hispanics and Native Americans ranked significantly higher than the previously mentioned races with between 15.6%-16.7% admitting use.

The environment in which the participants were raised also displayed a large contribution to the likelihood of use. Those who were raised in major urban areas were most likely to use (7.3%) and those in rural areas were among the least likely to use (4.0%). One major implication of these findings is the way it contradicts all previous research performed on purple drank. It indicates that there is little understanding about how this drug is actually used and abused. However, it allows for much more research to be conducted on this topic of interest. One major limitation found in this study is the lack of differentiation of the term “purple drank”. Researchers were unable to clearly identify whether the students who self-reported use were using codeine cough syrup with soda or if they were mixing codeine cough syrup and alcohol. This is an important aspect of the study that was not taken into consideration. 

Abstract

Agnich, L.E., Stogner, J.M., Miller, B.L., Marcum, C.D. (2013). Purple Drank prevalence and characteristics of misuers of codeine cough syrup mixtures. Addictive behaviors. 38, 2445-2449.