Most people probably think they have some sort of handle on the methamphetamine problem. They will be aware that Customs is kept busy intercepting the drug and its ingredients at the country's borders and may have read online and in last week's Stratford Press about the discovery of a potential meth lab in a car parked on a Stratford property.
They will have heard that it is highly addictive, and that it is increasingly linked with crime and violence.
What they won't know is what life is like for an addict.
Janet Balcombe can change that on Friday evening this week.
Janet will be at The Well Cafe on Broadway for the local launch of her extraordinarily candid book The Wild Side, the story of her train wreck of a life, the damage methamphetamine and other self-destructive behaviour did to her and her family, and how she came out the other side.