Lean, also known as purple drank, purp, sizzurp, syrup, and several other names, is a recreational drug beverage, prepared by mixing prescription strength cough or cold syrup containing codeine and promethazine with a soft drink. The beverage originated in Houston and is popular in hip hop culture, especially within the Southern United States.

Typically, the base for lean is a strong prescription cold medicine, specifically cough syrup that contains both promethazine and codeine. Over-the-counter cold medicines that contain dextromethorphan as the active ingredient have also been used, as they can produce similar effects and eliminate the need for a doctor's visit.[9][10]

To create a drinkable mixture, the cough syrup is combined with soft drinks, especially fruit-flavored drinks such as Sprite, Mountain Dew, or Fanta, and is typically served in a foam cup.[11][12] A hard candy, usually a Jolly Rancher, may be added to give the mixture a sweeter flavor.[1] Masking the undesired taste may impair judgment of the potency, which is a factor in overdosing.

Lean is thought to have developed in Houston around the 1960s, when blues musicians would take Robitussin and cut it with beer. Later, when wine coolers came onto the market, they substituted for beer.[13] These blues musicians lived in Houston's Fifth Ward, Third Ward, and South Park neighborhoods and the practice was taken up by the generation of rappers growing up in the same parts of the city.[13] In the 1980s and 1990s the formula changed to using codeine promethazine cough syrup, somewhat like the glutethimide and codeine combination that was popular from the 1970s up to the early 1990s.[13]

Lean remained a local phenomenon in Houston until the 1990s, when the American rapper DJ Screw released several tunes mentioning the drink in his mixtapes, which were extremely popular in the Houston area.[13] DJ Screw's music was particularly appropriate for Houston's climate. Due to the heat and expanse of the Houston area residents spent long drives in their cars, "the music that most appropriately complements that has always been the music of DJ Screw, it's slowed down—and when I say slowed down I mean he would record sessions in his apartment with rappers freestyling over beats and he would make these big mixtapes and then he would actually slow them down even further on his cassette recorder."[13] DJ Screw's invoking lean in his lyrics and his use of slow tempos had caused his style to be characterized "[a]s if the song itself has taken too much codeine promethazine".[13] Rappers outside of Houston soon adopted aspects of his style.[13]

The recreational use of lean had never been stigmatized in Houston, but with the apparently lean-related early death of DJ Screw, the concoction became the focus of law enforcement in the Houston area with felony charges being applied for some aspects surrounding it.