TRADING standards officers are warning about the dangers of using the drug dinitrophenol (DNP) for weight loss and bodybuilding in a campaign aimed at students.

They are handing out beer mats with the message ‘Would you play Russian Roulette with DNP?’ and talking to students at campuses in Surrey to raise awareness of the dangers of the drug.

The product is illegally marketed online as a diet pill and a bodybuilding aid and its effects on the body can be extremely damaging, resulting in some cases in coma or even death.

The campaign comes in the wake of a rise in the number of deaths nationally from DNP poisoning in the past five years.

Trading Standards officer Donna Ward said: “DNP is most definitely unsafe for human consumption, yet it is clear that it’s being sold illegally, mainly online, as an aid to help with weight loss.

“Our aim is to reach the young people – many of them students – who are most at risk of being tempted to use DNP, with the message that this is a potential killer.”