Crystal Meth's Weight Loss Dangers

Highly Addictive Drug Can Lead Women To Lose Control Over Lives

(CBS)  Crystal meth is a form of methamphetamine, the use of which has reached epidemic proportions in much of the country, especially the Midwest. Typically, people try it because they're looking for a higher high than they've found with other drugs.

But, reports correspondent Melinda Murphy in the second segment of the The Early Show's three-part series on methamphetamine abuse, it's also emerging as a drug of choice among women of all ages seeking alternatives to over-the-counter weight loss aids. And crystal meth can be dangerously addictive.

Samantha Rizzo of North St. Paul, Minn., told Murphy she started experimenting with crystal meth when she was 16, because of an obsession with her weight.

"A couple of guys … said it was something fun to do," Rizzo recalls. "There was another girl with me, and she's like, 'I heard it makes you skinny.' I said, 'OK, let's do it.' "

That split-second decision, Murphy observes, changed Rizzo's life forever.

She says she had no idea what the consequences would be, but she adds, "Even if I did have some idea what it could do to you, I didn't care. It made me skinny, and it worked."

Rizzo's perceptions about her body had troubled her for years: "I was a hefty little girl. But it started when people would tease me every day about what I looked like and harassed me on the Internet. …Then it started in my head that, 'You're not good enough. You're not, you know, small enough.' "