SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Drug use is suspected in the case of a thirteen-year-old Yellowknife girl found unresponsive in her home on Feb. 20.

The teenager had been out with friends the night of Feb. 19, RCMP Sgt. Wayne Norris said. Her parents checked on her in the early morning of Feb. 20 and found her "unresponsive and not breathing."

The RCMP were called at 3:15 a.m. The girl was then taken to Stanton Regional Hospital before being transported to Edmonton. Norris said the RCMP are treating the case as suspicious.

"If someone that age all of a sudden stops breathing that's not normal so obviously that's suspicious in our minds," the sergeant said. "So of course we're going to investigate it and try to determine what exactly caused her condition."

Norris said while drug use has not been confirmed, drugs are being investigated as a possible cause of the girl's condition.

"The investigators believe that at some point prior to falling ill, the young girl may have used some form of illicit drugs," he said. "This could be any number of things, that has not yet been confirmed, it is one aspect of the ongoing investigation."

Norris could not specify which drugs were being suspected.

"We don't have that info because it's still being investigated," he said.

Norris said the RCMP want to stress the dangers of using drugs.

"We want to remind the general public the dangers of using those unregulated substances, you don't know what's in them," he said. "We've had several youth in the last six months or so, I believe in Alberta, that died from taking ecstasy, so again we want to reiterate the dangers of using unregulated drugs."

Asked if drugs were a problem in the city, Norris said Yellowknife is "not immune" to the drug trade.

"Like most major centres in Canada, there is a drug trade and we have resources dedicated to combating the drug trade," he said.

The girl is still in Edmonton and her condition is not yet known.