DEADLY TREND: GIRLS USING CRYSTAL METH TO LOSE WEIGHT

Councillors Worried As Issues Collide

Drug advocacy groups and police in western Canada are noticing a
disturbing new trend of teenage girls who use the drug crystal meth to
lose weight -- up to 18 kilograms a month.

"We've got a recipe for disaster," says addiction counsellor Bob
Hughes. "It's huge -- this combination of body image issues and the
drug's weight loss appeal."

Crystal meth, the street version of the drug methamphetamine, is an
addictive stimulant that causes elation and alertness in addition to
curbing appetite. It has been around for decades and was, in fact,
first marketed in the 1920s as a weight-loss drug

Meth users can smoke, snort, inject or swallow the drug. They're
usually ingesting a crude combination of cold medicine, brake cleaner,
fertilizer, drain cleaner and iodine along with myriad other chemicals.

"Meth is an appetite suppressant," says Vancouver RCMP Corp. Scott
Rintoul. "It's a drug that will give you stimulation for 12 hours,
with no need to eat and no need to sleep."

It's also cheap -- between $5 to $10 per hit -- and has consequently
been labelled "poor man's cocaine."

But this time, teenage girls are using it.

"Young women know and find out quickly that there are drugs that do
reduce your appetite and cause you to lose weight," says Corp.
Rintoul. "And meth is so affordable."

Mr. Hughes, who helps run a crystal meth treatment program called Meth
Kickers, in Kamloops, B.C., says he's seeing an increased number of
teenage girls aged 12 to 18 come through his doors.

"You see these women who are five feet four inches and 95 pounds and
they have such a distorted body image," he said.

According to the World Health Organization, methamphetamine is the
most widely used illicit drug in the world after cannabis.

"We're in this era of stimulant drugs -- the need for speed," says
Corp. Rintoul. "But when it comes to body image, we also have the need
to be thin."

Meth has lethal side effects including insomnia, hallucinations,
paranoia and anxiety as well as heart problems, convulsion, brain
damage and death.