CTV.ca News Staff

Steve Paulson, of Teen Challenge Canada, a said the number of addicts has doubled in the last year.

Existing legislation is not sufficient for controlling the spread of crystal meth, a cheap, accessible drug taking hold in Canada's high schools and streets, police say.

One of the most addictive and deadly drugs on the street, crystal meth is a form of methamphetamine that is increasingly being made in illegal home labs from a toxic mix of ingredients like paint thinner, battery acid and the diet drug ephedrine.

Especially popular among teenagers because getting high can cost less than $20, it gives users an intense, long-lasting, euphoric high, accompanied by a feeling of invincibility.

"You just think about the drug 24/7," an addict, who asked to remain unidentified, told CTV News. "You just think about how you can get more."

Only 16 the first time he tried it, he's now a recovering addict.

Steve Paulson, executive director of Teen Challenge Canada, a program for teenage addicts, said the number of addicts coming through the doors of his organization's drug treatment program in Winnipeg has doubled in the last year.

Police are frustrated, because possession convictions net only small fines. Recently, a Manitoba judge sentenced one teenager charged with possession to a fine of $150.

Police and outreach professionals say that seems low, when the fine for possessing an opened container of alcohol in a public place is $167, the fine for speeding 15 kilometres over the posted speed limit is $163, and driving without your seatbelt buckled can cost $247.

"If the punishment is to act as a deterrent, comparatively speaking, it seems out of bounds," observed Winkler Police Chief Rick Hiebert told CTV News.

"It's maybe a two or three or four-day ride for a crystal meth addict," said Paulson. "That's not much."

Paulson said higher fines won't stop addicts from seeking a fix, however, and has what he thinks is a better idea.

"Perhaps things like boot camps, maybe privately run boot camps would be a good consequence," he said, "not places where young people are being punished, but a place where the drugs aren't going to be available."

According to the UN Drug Control Program, about 24 million people worldwide are estimated to be using methamphetamines. That's  a much larger number than the eight to nine million people the UNDCP estimates are using heroin, but ranks well behind 144 million estimated users of marijuana and cannabis derivatives. 

All forms of methamphetamine take a heavy physical toll on users. Meth depletes the body of nutrients needed to maintain normal neural function and extended abuse can cause permanent nerve damage.

Drug abuse among teenagers is particularly alarming because human brains don't finish growing until the early 20s. Drug consumption in the teenage years can create a receptivity pattern in how the brain reacts to stimuli, and set the stage for life-long abuse.

According to Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, people who don't use drugs before age 21 rarely get hooked later in life.

Last year, the federal government reclassified meth, putting it in the same category as drugs like heroin and cocaine. That means that those who make and sell the drugs face tougher fines and jail time.

The federal minister of justice has promised harsher punishments to stem usage in the future.

With a report by CTV's Jill Macyshon and files from The Associated Press