When Delight Greenidge’s son came home from school and asked her how to make a tourniquet, she wanted to know why. It was for an assignment he was doing for drama class.

“Oh, my assignment is about how to make crystal meth,” he told her.

Greenidge’s son is 13. He is in Year 8 in a middle school in Mississauga, Canada. His drama teacher had suggested a skit on crystal meth. The teacher had printed out instructions on how to cook and inject crystal meth, and handed them to students.

Greenidge read the handout.

“I’m reading this thing and my eyes are just swelling as I’m reading it and I think my blood pressure went up by about 50 points because it is detailed, step-by-step, blueprint instructions on what you need to make crystal meth, how to prepare the crystal meth and then how to inject yourself with crystal meth,” Greenidge told Mississauga.com.

Delight Greenidge reads her son's handout. Image via CBC News.

“I think the worst part is that my son’s role in this play, skit – whatever it is – was to be the one injecting himself. So that’s the reason why he needed to know how to make a tourniquet.”

The instructions on injecting began with this line:

"Step 1. Give your arms a wipe with alcohol wipes (what I use) or use a wet wipe. This is to prevent any bacteria infection."

Later steps went into detail about how to make veins show and how to know when the needle had hit a vein.

Greenidge told CBC News the teacher had told the students to "act scared" when dramatising making the drug, and "act happy" when injecting it.

Mississauga mom distraught over Grade 8 son's crystal meth assignment https://t.co/VcB9JwGJNo pic.twitter.com/Dcf6xHEoHz

— CBC Toronto (@CBCToronto) February 18, 2017

"It's mind-boggling," she says. "It could undo a lot of what I taught him because sometimes he would think the things the teacher says are sometimes more important than the things Mum says. They do have that influence and impact."

Greenidge took her concerns to the school, and the teacher has been suspended with pay, pending an investigation.

A spokesperson for the Peel District School Board, Carla Pereira, confirmed the handout was given to students by their teacher in a drama class. It is believed the information was taken from a website.

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“We share the parent’s concerns around the appropriateness of the assignment," Pereira said. "Certainly it’s not something we would ever recommend as a lesson plan to be provided to students at any age."

Seth Fletcher from the Canadian Centre for Addictions told CBC News it was potentially harmful to bring material into a Year 8 classroom that might encourage drug use.

"I don't know if the intention was to condone drug use, but what's equally dangerous is what is the perception it leaves, and if someone in that classroom condones it, that's the exact same effect."