Children as young as six years old are getting hooked on methamphetamine in Mexico.
The substance is called cristal in the central-American country and its users are getting younger and younger over the last decade or so.
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Mexico's Health Secretary revealed meth has overtaken heroin, crack and cocaine in terms of usage.
A single dose of meth is reportedly only a few dollars and access to the drug is fairly easy on the streets.
The department said only 5 per cent of people seeking government-sponsored rehab in 2010 were meth addicts. That's now jumped to more than 30 per cent, according to 2020 figures.
Dr. Norma Leticia Corona, the director of a youth rehab center in Mexico, has told Vice News that the age of some people needing help has become dangerously young.
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"What we have heard from the children that we've treated has been that it's a relative, an uncle, a brother, a father, a neighbor, a friend, who initially persuaded them to try [meth]," she said.
"We once had a 6-year-old [come for meth abuse]."
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She added that the people who come in usually range from 8 to 16 years old. Around 80 per cent of the kids needing treatment are there because of meth. A 16-year-old told the news outlet that he started taking meth four years ago when he was only 12.
"The first time, they were goblins. Then I started to hallucinate that I was listening to demons," the teen said.
A 15-year-old said he got addicted to the drug when he was two years younger after he was recruited by a Mexican cartel to sell illegal substances.
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He told Vice News: "I spent six months on the street. Each time [I got high], I felt a deeper emptiness into which I fell and fell.
"The truth, there were a lot of things and I've felt bad since. I prostituted myself for drugs. And it was an experience that as long as I was high, I thought what I was doing was OK."
Doing hard rugs like meth can be extremely damaging to a person's body and mind at any age, however doing them when you're a teenager or pre-teen is extraordinarily concerning.
Psychiatrist Donald Moses explained on WebMD: "The young brain is still growing, developing more and more synapses, more and more knowledge, and so there can be more and more damage."
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People who have taken meth for a while are at risk of chronic depression and cognitive problems because of how the drug affects the brain's serotonin and dopamine levels.
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