By Howard Salkow

OPINION: Senator Jacqui Lambie has used a personal experience to highlight what is society's greatest challenge. In doing so, she has done us a huge favour.

By identifying her son's addiction to the lethal drug ice, she has underlined the need for this issue to be tackled head on. She is spot on when she says that it's time to turn the rhetoric into action. 

Her impassioned plea in the media needs to be taken seriously and you can be certain that she will push as hard as she can. She needs our support, just like other parents who are faced with a similar predicament.

Albeit here in Port Douglas, or the capital cities, our youth are destroying their lives by being addicted to this drug. The consequences are too ghastly to contemplate and it's scary when Lambie says she is not talking to her son, but talking to a drug.

This complex issue needs all the attention it can get. Community groups need to lobby local, state and federal government to implement steps before it destroys many more lives. Many have witnessed its destruction via TV documentaries and newspaper features.

We cannot allow this to escalate out of control. You can bet there are countless other families pleading for law enforcement to clamp down, but we know this is no easy task. This drug seems readily available and by all accounts, inexpensive (whatever that means)

Lambie desperately needs the support of her Canberra colleagues. Let's forget about her indifferent start to her political life. Let's take her seriously and respect what she is saying. We need to work together. 

This is a societal issue and our leaders and captains of society must band together and deal with this head on.