What would you do If one of your children drank drain cleaner? Of course you would rush them to the hospital, because this is a poison. It's just one of the poisonous ingredients that's often used to make methamphetamine. Others might be battery acid or brake fluid.

Meth is one of the most addictive, most dangerous drugs out there. So, I looked into this drug by talking to police, drug counselors and recovering addicts.

This girl went from looking like this, to looking like this in a matter of months. She is one of the many faces of meth. Jack Gaskill, Director of ARA, says, "The biggest problem we have and continue to see is meth. It accounts for 84 to 90% of people we're gonna see."

meth, Crystal meth, Ice, no matter what it's called on the street, people who have first hand experience with it have another name: The Devil's Drug. Steve Davis with ISP Investigations sees the dangers of meth every day on the job. "The person that uses meth once and says 'I'm good.' They're lying to themselves. If you've used it once you're gonna use it again.You may not use it for a year, you may not use it for two years, you may only make it for a day or two but, it's the most absolutely addictive thing that there is out there.It is the devil himself and people need to understand that."

This is Doc.... He was 11 years old when he first used. "From that point on the best way I could get my drugs I needed was to sell the drugs I needed." Like Doc, many people start using when they're young. Listen to these ads where teens confess. "Hi, my name is Cyndi. I'm 15 years old. I'm from Browning Montana and I started doing meth when I was 12." "I'm Trina. I'm from Missoula, Montana and I started doing meth when I was 16."

This is Teresa. She was addicted to meth for over twenty years.. Like Doc, she says chasing that meth high leads in only one direction. "And I didn't go to prison right away. I just got put on probation and it amazes me that I still was determined to find ways to use. I didn't think, 'well I have to stop now.' That's why I say it's such a seriously evil drug."

Doc says he's quit over a hundred times, "I went 3 years there clean and thought I could do it, you know I could control it and just do it recreational that first rush that hits like that one was too many and a 1000 wasn't enough. Boom, right back into it I went and then right back to prison I went."

Doc and Teresa both went to prison multiple times and lost custody of their children. Teresa lost loved ones and her family, "Two weeks before I got out of prison and my fiance ended up killing himself. So, I pretty much lost everything that I love. Anything that ever meant anything to me. The fear of trying to live life without them was greater than the fear of loosing all those things. Even after I lost all those things, my main priority was making sure I had enough meth to continue to function every day."

Researchers at UCLA have mapped brain decay caused by meth. The areas in red show at least a 5% loss in brain capacity. The damage affected memory, emotion, and reward systems. The long term damage will never go away. Doc constantly flinches and fidgets, "I've got Tarter Disconesia which is a form of Parkinson's Disease and that's from the drugs."

But there is a way to keep your kids from totally destroying their lives with meth. All the experts I talked to say, talk to them before they start. Our neighbors to the north have taken that one step further with a massive campaign called The Montana Meth Project.

(ad- I won't be like that guy.)

"It's not that they are making something up.That is what happens. I've seen it. What they are showing is absolutely accurate and worse sometimes and because they did it once, now they're there and I think that's what we need to do is try and get that information and if it takes us being a little bit over the top and a little bit aggressive with that, I think it's the right thing to do. People and kids need to know how horrible this is and it isn't something that happens down the street, it isn't something that happens in somebody else's neighborhood it's gonna happen in your family. It's gonna happen to somebody you know and now you're gonna have to deal with it and it's better to be up front and to approach that now than it will be to just turn your back on it and walk away." -Steve Davis

I asked Doc, "When you first tried meth how long did it take you to be addicted to it?" He confirmed, "The day I did it."

Teresa had the same reply. "yeah, I was addicted the first time." -Teresa

And there's a reason the Montana Meth Project's message is not even once. Now that she's clean, Teresa realizes that meth takes a hold of your soul and wrings the life out of it. And she's very grateful to be clean.

"If I were to start using again, It would be like kicking God in the face. I've been given this gift. I feel really lucky, just lucky."

Now if you would like to find out more about what Montana is doing, or just educate yourself more on the topic, you can go to either one of their web sites, www.montanameth.org or www.notevenonce.com. Police are doing everything they can do to fight it on their end. And everyone I talked to, says the key to even fighting this epidemic is stopping people from using in the first place.