The question city councillor Merv Unger wants raised is how to get the message about the drug's dangers to school kids.

Unger is urging that school anti-drug education focus on the drug because he's heard reports that crystal meth is being sprayed on other drugs and even candy in an attempt to addict younger users.

He hasn't heard about it happening in Nanaimo yet, but that's why it's time to raise the alarm bell.

"We think we have problems with it now, but when you start reaching kids and putting it in candy, I think we need to start scaring the hell out of people," he said.

Unger is chairman of the city's Safer Downtown Working Group, which is looking to reduce problems on the streets. He thinks enforcement is important, but prevention is the best cure when it comes to addiction to a drug so easily made.

The drug is on the Education Ministry's anti-drug curriculum, but Unger thinks kids need to hear more forcefully how powerfully addictive and dangerous crystal meth is.

He's recommending schools add a presentation from the group Crystal Meth B.C.

The group's director, Mark McLaughlin, said it has presented its show to 14,000 students in other communities on Vancouver Island and says the message he's hearing back from the kids is clear.

When school audiences are asked if they know someone using crystal meth "the hands go up in the air," he said. "And it's never less than 15 per cent, and it's often as high as 30 or 40 per cent."

Lorne Hildebrand of the Edgewood drug treatment clinic in Nanaimo said he sees more addicts involved with crystal meth coming to his centre.

He added education efforts should be focused on addiction itself, not a single drug.