American rapper Juice WRLD died from an accidental overdose of opiates, according to autopsy results released Wednesday in Chicago, more than a month after the artist's sudden death at one of the airports in the city.
"The cause of death is accidental," said Cook County forensic science services after an autopsy of 21-year-old rapper Jarad Higgins.
"Jarad Higgins died from poisoning with oxycodone and codeine", powerful analgesics that belong to the same family as morphine and heroin.
Caught in convulsions
Juice WRLD was convulsed at Chicago Midway Airport when police searched his luggage for weapons and drugs. Authorities were waiting for him at the airport after he had just returned from California on a private jet.
When Juice WRLD started to feel sick, a police officer gave him emergency naloxone, an antidote used in opioid overdoses.
The rapper then temporarily regained consciousness but died soon after in the hospital.
The police found in his luggage and those of his entourage about forty sachets of cannabis, six bottles of codeine cough syrup, as well as several handguns and ammunition.
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Many musicians, like Prince or Tom Petty, died of an opioid overdose, responsible in recent years for a major health crisis in the United States where they have caused tens of thousands of deaths.
Addiction to pharmaceutical drugs
Juice WRLD made a name for themselves in 2017 with "Lucid Dreams", a song that takes up the famous guitar notes from Sting's song "Shape of my heart". Followed by collaborations with artists like Travis Scott, Young Thug or Future. In 2019, he participated in the international tour of the immense RnB star Nicki Minaj, with two dates in France.
Juice WRLD: "Lucid Dreams"
Four months before his death, the rapper had publicly exposed his drug addiction. Promising on Twitter his girlfriend and his fans that he would stop using pharmaceutical drugs. "Fuck the Codeine, I'm done with that. I love you and I want to make it known publicly that it is not shit that will fuck the true love that I found […] Addiction kills everything but you can defeat it ”, he wrote on Twitter .