“I’m young. I’m beautiful, if there is a time to have fun, it’s right now” Caitlin said as she loaded up her pink ipod with this week’s latest and most fashionable tunes.

“I go out four, sometimes five times a week, depending on the week”. “My favorite genre is dubstep, I’ve been into it for over a year, so I’m old school in the scene” She described the genre as “kind of like slow hip-hop, but with much more bass and less vocals”.

Caitlin is a 19 year old self-described party girl. While the average person her age may go out one or two times a week, her life revolves around the bar and party scene.

The CEGEP student explained “I took this semester off basically to party. It’s hard to balance school and the scene, I wanted to give the scene a chance”.

Caitlin was not shy about her drug and alcohol use.

“Using drugs is part of the scene, part of the music. The music is simple, it is meant to be heard in a certain way, with a drink in one hand and a bump of K in the other”.

K is a slang term for Ketamine, a tranquilizer used on small animals during surgery. Once processed from its liquid stage, it becomes a white powder similar to cocaine. Most users choose to inhale it using a straw or rolled up bill.

“I start every day with a small bump, I call it a wake-me-up bump” Caitlin said as she laid out a small quantity of powder on to her kitchen table. “It doesn’t affect me too badly, as long as I don’t drink too much alcohol”. “Everyone in the dubstep scene does K, it’s kind of weird if you don’t, the bars don’t really care as long as you don’t do it in the open”

Caitlin went on to describe her ‘battle scars’.

“I’m partially deaf in my left ear. It happened when I drank loads of jaggermeister and did a bump of K at a dubstep night a few months ago. I passed out next to the speaker. People just left me there. When I finally came to, at 3am, I heard a loud ringing sound in my ear. It hasn’t gone away that much, but I’m used to it. The doctor said if I am careful the hearing might come back, but it’s hard to not go out!”.

Caitlin then pointed to a scar on her left leg.

“This happened when I fell down the stairs leaving a club. I had done some K and it was hard to walk. I cut myself when I hit the ground, and needed 5 stitches. I was so high they didn’t need to use any pain killer, I felt nothing”.

Not everyone in the scene has been as lucky as Caitlin. At a recent dubstep party thrown in a converted warehouse in the outskirts of the city, a 15 year old girl overdosed on what she had thought was ketamine. After testing, large quantities of quinine, an anti-malaria drug, were found. She arrived at hospital in critical condition, as she had laid unconscious for over an hour before her friends brought her to the emergency room.

“It’s normal to leave people passed out at parties” Caitlin said. “When you do lots of K, you end up in what is called a K-hole, and you just lie there”. “There was no way to know if the girl at that party was really sick”

Caitlin went on to explain the relationship between the dubstep scene and ketamine. “Most of the promoters are dealers, to be quite frank. When I pick up K, I usually get tickets for that week’s shows from the same person”. “It’s convenient, I guess”.

When asked about her studies, Caitlin explained “When the party stops, I will go back to school. It might be a while. I don’t think the dubstep scene is going to go away any time soon”.