DEA WARNS OF SOFT DRINK-COUGH SYRUP MIX

When San Diego Chargers defensive back Terrence Kiel was charged last
month with illegally shipping cases of prescription cough syrup back
home to East Texas, it cast a spotlight on a drug trend authorities
say is spreading throughout the South and being celebrated in rap songs.

In a statement announcing Kiel's arrest Sept. 26, the Drug
Enforcement Administration cited the rising popularity of a
concoction that includes codeine-laced syrup mixed with a soft drink
or sports drink. Such cocktails -- known as "Lean," "Syrup,"
"Sizzurp" and "Purple Drank" -- were popularized in rap mixes in the
late 1990s by Robert Earl Davis Jr., a Houston disc jockey known as DJ Screw.

Since then, some teens and young adults in East Texas and beyond have
been getting high on drinks in which the key ingredient is a
prescription cough suppressant that contains the opiate codeine. DEA
Special Agent Doug Coleman, who tracks the drug from the agency's
headquarters in Arlington, Va., says users typically mix an ounce of
the syrup with Sprite, a sports drink or a regional soft drink called
Big Red, then plop in a Jolly Rancher candy and pour it over ice. The
opiate produces a feeling of euphoria and causes motor skill
impairment that makes users move slowly or lean over.

The scope of cough syrup abuse across the nation is unclear because
national drug surveys do not ask about it specifically. However,
police, federal drug agents and public health analysts from Texas to
Florida say the abuse and illegal sale of codeine syrup are rising
and are part of the much larger problem of prescription drug abuse.

In 2004, 8.3% of Texas secondary school students reported having
taken enough codeine syrup to get high, according to a survey by the
University of Texas.

The misuse of prescription syrups is "a huge trend. We've seen more
of it in the last few years than we've ever seen before," Coleman
says. "We see a lot of kids getting hold of it" by ordering from
online pharmacies that accept unverified prescriptions and identification.

DEA agents say the demand for illicit syrup has sent its price
soaring. Syrup that typically sells for $12 a pint that is stolen or
obtained illegally from pharmacies and warehouses often is sold to
street dealers for about $300 a pint, says Richard Sanders, a DEA
agent in Tyler, Texas. He says East Texas dealers then sell it by the
ounce to users for $40-$85 -- or $640-$1,360 a pint.

The DEA's largest busts involving syrup have been in Texas and
Florida, but it is turning up across the South. In August, police in
Natchez, Miss., found several bottles of illicit syrup in countywide
drug raids, and police in Alexandria, La., seized 15 1-pint bottles
from a 48-year-old man.

Overdosing on prescription syrup is potentially fatal, but it's
unclear how many people have died drinking such concoctions. Too much
codeine, which is produced from morphine, can depress the central
nervous system and stop the heart and lungs, Coleman says. "The
misconception is that prescription drugs are OK because they are
medicine," he says. "But if you're taking 25 times the recommended
dosage, it's very dangerous."

In November 2000, DJ Screw, the innovator of rap mixes that glorified
syrup drinks, died of a codeine overdose. His re-mixed and
slowed-down rap songs reflected the narcotic effects of syrup, says
Rolling Stone executive editor Joe Levy.

Since DJ Screw's death, others have extolled syrup drinks in their
raps and mixes. Three 6 Mafia, an Oscar-winning hip-hop group,
recently had a hit song called Sippin' on the Syrup. "Here in
Houston, it went hand in hand with a very innovative form of hip-hop
music called 'screw music,' " after DJ Screw, says Ron Peters,
assistant professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Texas
Health Science Center.

"I'd be surprised if the majority of high school hip-hop fans don't
know what syrup is," Levy says. "But it doesn't mean they are using it."

Syrup drinks appeared in Pensacola, Fla., in 1999 as a social drink
among drug dealers, says Pensacola police Sgt. Stephen Bauer.
Pensacola's narcotics unit recently concluded a wiretap investigation
in which cocaine and marijuana dealers routinely mentioned syrup in
recorded conversations, Bauer says.

In Louisiana, teens are using syrup in the Lafayette and Lake Charles
areas, says Kristen Meyer of the state Department of Health and
Hospitals. "It's new on everyone's radar," she says.

Trafficking of syrup is rising in Texas, says Special Agent Tim
Stover of the DEA's Fort Worth office. Dealers in Dallas, Fort Worth
and Houston have bought pints from corrupt pharmacy owners for cash, he says.

In Houston, seven pharmacists and a doctor were convicted last summer
of illegally diverting more than 2,500 gallons of narcotic cough
syrup by creating and filling hundreds of phony prescriptions.

In August, a federal grand jury in Oakland indicted the directors of
a non-profit organization set up to distribute medicine in Nigeria.
They allegedly used the group to divert prescription drugs, including
syrup, to dealers and users.

Despite crackdowns by police, prescription syrup is a popular illicit
drug in Tyler, where Kiel's packages were to have been sent. Kiel,
who grew up in nearby Lufkin, told DEA agents he shipped the syrup to
help out a cousin, says Bob Grimes, Kiel's attorney. The cousin has
not been identified; no others have been charged.

Court papers say DEA agents were told of Kiel's shipment by FedEx
managers who inspected a package the player had dropped off and found
15 pints of syrup. Kiel was arrested after he took a second box of
syrup to FedEx. DEA agents found more syrup in his garage, Special
Agent Dan Simmons says. Kiel pleaded not guilty to five felony
charges. He could face up to five years in prison if convicted.