TORONTO - One pretty pill and Char Chin felt like she had downed six or seven Red Bull energy drinks.
She wanted to exercise, go clubbing, talk the night away, just do stuff. The experience wasn't entirely new - Chin had experimented with "bad stuff" in the past, and vowed never to do it again. But there was no guilt in the euphoric trip she went on with a pal in late October.
Hitting up the Everything to do with Sex Show, a scintillating convention held in Toronto, she'd spotted a brightly coloured booth hyping products its scantily clad saleswomen called "social tonics."
After asking a slew of questions, she laid down $120 for several packages of "Purepillz," which were described to her as safer legal alternatives to more dangerous street drugs.
"That energy, it's amazing," the 20-year-old University of Toronto student recalled. "Just being able to stay up for the entire night, just doing nothing, even. Just staying up and running around."
The buzz lasted about 14 hours, and it wasn't until the next night after going dancing that she slept again.
"I stopped doing drugs a long time ago because I realized I'm really putting myself at risk if I keep doing this," she said. "So that's why (I tried.) They kept telling me it's a safer alternative, it's better than taking ecstasy."
Health Canada, drugs experts and police aren't so sure.
Although the synthetic products can be legally purchased over the counter in several major Canadian cities, such as at head and sex shops, they fall in a hazy legal zone of substances like salvia divinorum and jimson weed that are sometimes being used by youth and Generation Y-aged folk.
"The main problem is just so little is known," said Wende Wood, a psychiatric pharmacist at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. "And this stuff certainly isn't tested."
In late November, Health Canada started taking steps toward moving the compounds - or ingredients - found in Purepillz products like "Peaq," "Freq" and "Pure Rush" to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
"It is being presented as a legal alternative, but there is a difference between legal and approved, and not illegal," Wood said.
Benzylpiperazine (or BZP) - one of the main substances in the stimulant-class products - may have initially been developed as an anti-parasitic for livestock. The agency began investigating after learning it was increasingly being used recreationally and imported into the country with no specific purpose.
Health Canada has no statistics on BZP, but spokesman Philippe Laroche said the substance can increase body temperature, blood pressure, cause dilated pupils and - when taken in higher doses and combined with another ingredient called 3-TFMPP - cause hallucinations, convulsions and respiratory depression.
"They really can't say this stuff is safe," Wood said.
Adam Wookey, a director of the Canadian-based Purepillz, agrees.
"With this substance, as with every other substance, there is a risk," he said, explaining the company is offering harm reduction, not elimination.
"All it is is the risk is significantly reduced from anything you would be taking in place of it that would be its illicit counterpart."
He stressed people need to look at all the facts and whether the product could have benefits.
"At the end of the day, if there is a risk to this product being taken off the market, that's an issue too."
Health Canada points to two deaths relating to the combined use of BZP and other substances, as well as a study out of New Zealand where the product was first introduced as a harm reduction solution to crystal methamphetamine. (Wookey contests this study, calling it biased.)
Over five-months, 61 patients showed up in the country's emergency rooms suffering adverse reactions to BZP-based products. In two cases, the patients experienced life-threatening toxicity.
The wholesale distributor who stocks Wookey's shelves, Stargate, stresses on its website: "If you are not a hard drug user, don't start using drugs now. The right choice is to avoid drug use."
Which has Canadian police scratching their heads as to why Purepillz uses DJs and attractive colours to market their wares.
"Anyone that sells drugs that are so-called legal, it's all money. The whole purpose is to make money," said Scott Rintoul, a B.C.-based RCMP officer who's been working the rave and clubbing scene since 1998.
Officers first noticed BZP hit Vancouver's mainstream about two years ago, he said, causing them concern its users are engaging in unsafe behaviours like high-risk sex.
"That's an irresponsible statement to say that BZP is a harm reduction drug. To wean people off of what? To take them away from ecstasy? I don't understand that."
Matt Bowden, Stargate's founder and developer of the tablets distributed by Purepillz, said the sexy marketing is the only way to reach their target demographic.
"If we make it look like a boring medicine, and give it to doctors to hand out, the majority of methamphetamine users don't present to treatment and they're not going to trust something that looks like that," he said.
"We're targeting the dance community, so we've got to reach them in a way they relate to."
Following two nightclub incidents in June, Toronto police issued a public safety alert.
In the first, they alleged a 55-year-old man died after ingesting the Purepillz product "Pure Rush." Twenty-four hours later, they said a 27-year-old woman who ingested a similar product at the same club also collapsed.
(Wookey, whose products have been seized several times from stores, has never faced police action. He also says he was later told other substances could be at play in the Toronto incidents.)
Still, all the warnings won't dissuade some from using the product until there's either harder evidence or it's officially stamped "illegal."
"If I listened to every single doctor about every single warning, we probably wouldn't be eating, breathing, or drinking or anything," said Paul Desautels, 30.
The Ottawa, Ont., man said he and his girlfriend, 28, were initially leery about taking chemicals, but after researching the product and trying it a few times decided he "loves" the Purepillz experience and would highly recommend it.
"Trust yourself, that's the way I see it."
