POT SHOTS FIRED AT JUNKIES' MAGAZINE

Outrage Over 'Drug Chic' Women's Glossy Offering Recipes And Beauty
Tips To Heroin And Cocaine Users

A women's magazine with a difference will appear in the Netherlands
next month. Its glossy pages are filled with beauty tips, horoscopes,
feature stories about sex and cooking and oodles of health advice -
but Sister Mainline is aimed at female cocaine and heroin addicts, and
its contents have infuriated anti-drugs campaigners across Europe.

Held up as a classic example of "drug chic" publishing, the magazine
is partly funded by the Dutch health ministry. Its controversial
message is not that hard drugs are intrinsically bad, but that they
can be used "sensibly".

Its print run may be just 1,500, but its impact in an increasingly
conservative political climate is likely to be explosive.

The 220-page magazine will include a step-by-step guide on how to
shoot up.

"You can use drugs if you are sensible and you know where the line
is," Jasperine Schupp, the magazine's editor-in-chief, said. "And to
know where the line is you have to give people objective information.
Telling people just not to do it is not good enough. The important
thing is to tell people about the risks so they can see where they can
go wrong."

The magazine will have a cooking section with recipes designed to
boost the flagging appetites of cocaine addicts.

It will also include a multiple choice quiz on drugs. Readers with the
most points will be told they are "really good users who know what
they're doing"; an average total will bring the warning "beware of
your drug dealer - you could get ripped off"; and those with fewest
points will be warned that they must improve their knowledge.

Like most women's magazines, it will also include a section of beauty
tips, albeit with a drug-related theme.

"When you use cocaine, it plays tricks on your mind and makes you want
to scratch yourself," explained Ms Schupp.

"We advise readers to try to distract themselves, to cut their nails
short and to apply a special cream."

Aimed at long-term users aged between 20 and 65, Sister Mainline will
also include the real-life diary of an addict.

Since many of the intended readers are drug-addicted prostitutes,
other subjects such as rape, safe sex, and treatment for HIV are also
tackled.

"It's a mixture of the fun and the serious, but we're trying to help
people," said Ms Schupp. "We try to do it in a light, positive way
otherwise people won't read it.

"It's not that we promote drugs. But we think our readers are
responsible. They are adults and we treat them as adults. We don't
want to stigmatise them."

Ms Schupp also says feedback from readers who sampled a similar
magazine called Mainline Lady last year was overwhelmingly positive.

"They said it made them feel better, that they didn't feel dirty any
more - that it was good that it glamourises it, because they didn't
feel like junkies any more."

However, Mainline's approach is not a hit with everyone, and at least
one political party, the Christian Union, is considering an attempt to
shut it down.

"The signal you send to society is that drug use is allowed and not
bad," Jacob Pot, a senior party policy adviser, said.

"We're opposed to this. Legally speaking, selling drugs is forbidden,
and it's not the government's task to get involved with this kind of
thing. We may act on it."

Peter Stoker, the director of the UK's National Drug Prevention
Alliance, agrees. "I have a useful tip for addicts, and that's give
up," he said. "We're concerned about these publications. None can
claim they're confined to, and only read by, users; they get out on to
newsstands."

"It all looks tremendously exciting, soft-focus and trendy, but a lot
of the material is transparent validation and promotion of drug use,
and that stinks.

"It's the glamour that gets me, and I say that with 15 years
experience in the field. I've been to quite a lot of funerals."

Ms Schupp, who says the magazine is selectively distributed at
methadone centres, hospitals, in red light districts and in prisons,
is unfazed.

"If you are happy and healthy you can continue using drugs," she said.
"You can do what you want provided you don't trouble the
neighbours."

Dear drug addict...

>From this year's issue, Sister Mainline, due out in December:

=B7 Skincare tips to stop addicts from scratching, and treatments for
drug-induced dry skin

=B7 A step-by-step guide to shooting up, where not to inject and how to
clean your skin before injecting

=B7 A test-yourself multiple choice quiz about drug use. Top scorers are
told they are 'really good users who know what they're doing'

=B7 Lyrics from famous drug-inspired songs

=B7 A real-life diary of an addict

=B7 Special recipes designed to boost the flagging appetites of cocaine
addicts

=B7 A hit parade of books on drug use

=B7 Drug-oriented horoscopes

>From last year's issue, Mainline Lady:

=B7 Wijnie, a 38-year old cocaine and heroin addict from Amsterdam, has
a hair and face makeover

=B7 Shauna, a former addict, poses in the fashion pages

=B7 Dear Doctor answers questions from syringe users about
HIV

=B7 In the horoscope section, Geminis are told they will 'finally manage
to put on a bit of weight', while Librans are promised that their
doctor will 'for once understand what your problem is, instead of just
prescribing methadone'