Pay no attention to that doodyhead Norbizness, with his bagging on the Lone Star State. Sure, we may be dead last in the percent of 19-35 month-old children who are fully immunized, and second-to-last in average monthly benefit per participant in WIC, but we're tops in energy consumption (11,501 trillion BTU), and 2nd in teen birth rate (69.2 per 1000).
What's more, Houston is now famous for something else: illegal cough syrup consumption:
The abuse of a codeine-fortified cough syrup is so widespread among youths here that Houston has become nationally known in the rap culture as "the City of Syrup," a local researcher says.
[...]
The syrup has been used at least once by about 30 percent of teenagers in the Houston area, says Ron Peters, a professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.
Newsflash: Teens use medicines and other household objects to get high.
Kids these days, they don't know how good they have it. We were stuck with whip-its and hitting up Albertson's patrons to buy us beer, and we liked it.
But the widespread use of codeine with promethazine is widely believed to have begun in Houston, along with the popularity of a type of rap music developed by local record producer D.J. Screw, who died in 2000 of an overdose of the drug he promoted in his songs.
The producer, whose real name was Robert Earl Davis Jr., developed a slowed-down form of rap called "screw" that extols the use of prescription cough syrup known on the street by such names as "syrup, lean, purple, syzurp, drank or purple jelly."
Now, Houston rappers such as nationally known Mike Jones lace their "screw" music with such lyrics as, "I keep that purple stuff in my cup," a reference to mixing cough syrup with soft drinks.
Well why didn't you say so? I think I heard one of those "screw" songs a few years back:
When the weight of the world has got you down
and you want to end your life.
Bills to pay, a dead-end job,
and problems with the wife.
But don't throw in the towel,
'cuz there's a place right down the block...
Where you can drink your misery away...
At Flaming Moe's....
When liquor in a mug
can warm you like a hug.
And happiness is just a Flaming Moe away...
Happiness is just a Flaming Moe away...
Love that "rap" music.
[sources say] the drug is most often made available by unscrupulous doctors.
Peters said users sometimes obtain a legitimate prescription by faking a serious cough.
There's your problem. Anybody who's lived in Houston long enough doesn't have to "fake" a serious cough.
*cough*cough*
--hack---
*cough*cough*
>wheeze
The glorification of that "purple stuff" has been going on for years in Houston--just listen to either 97.9 ("The Box") or Party 104.9 on any given Sunday night to hear their all-night blocks of slowed-down, distorted mixes.
The Houston Press reported on the widespread abuse years ago, when we playas down wit the Screwed-Up Clique (or "Click," as its spelled in the vernacular) were mourning the loss of DJ Screw.
Of course those crackers at the Chron are behind the curve. Bitches.
I guess enough white kids have started doing it to make it newsworthy.
We did it high tech, I had a buddy that used a centrifuge (that he found just sitting in the science lab) to spin the syrup into its components separating the yummy codeine from the crap.
A shot of that, a joint and a few beers is like gluing yourself to the world’s most comfortable couch, you just don’t make plans for that day.
Good times.
Wow. Congratulations are in order.
...though the Flaming Moe was specifically made with "Krusty's Non Narkotic Cough syrup", which would cause a different reaction than those soda 'n syrup slurpers in Texas (eeew. Why drink a lot of bad tasting syrup when you can just drink a lot less of something only slightly more foul). Can anyone name the magic ingredient in the Flaming Moe?