CRYSTAL METH'S NEW DANGER

Girls Using It As Weight-Loss Drug

OTTAWA -- 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.

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 a myriad of 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 Rintoul. "And
meth is so affordable."

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
Rintoul. "But when it comes to body image, we also have the need to be
thin."

Methamphetamine has been around for decades. It was marketed in North
America in the 1920s as a weight-loss drug.

"It was touted for its dietary benefits," says Hughes. "It's amazing
that in the first place this drug was used was for weight loss."

Meth is relatively simple to make. There are thousands of recipes on
the Internet and police estimate that an investment of about $150 can
yield an amount worth about $10,000 on the street.

But it also has lethal side-effects. Meth use can cause insomnia,
hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety as well as heart problems,
convulsion, brain damage and death. Across the country, there are
unclear statistics of how many girls use crystal meth to lose weight.
But one thing that both police and drug advocacy groups agree on is
that the drug is spreading from west to east.

"We can see the tornado coming," says Zenon Lisakowski, a prevention
and education consultant with the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba.
"But what is interesting is that we have the ability to put
preventative measures in place.

"It's going to get worse. It's going to spread east first, before we
go through the cycle. Whether it's going to explode like it has in
some U.S. states, we hope not."