That seemed to happen on Friday when a mother who featured on the front page of the Register shared her story about dealing with an ice-affected teenager on radio.

With a voice that broke into sobs, she retold her tale of anguish, heartbreak and frustration when she discovered her young son had been using ice and tried to get help for him and support for herself.

The emotion in her voice amplified the grief she had been going through. So much so, in fact, it prompted a call from Gilmore MP Ann Sudmalis, who revealed on air that she had organised a public forum on the ice epidemic for November 20 at the Nowra School of Arts in Berry Street. Among the speakers she hoped to enlist was a founding member of the Family Drug Support Group, the intention to help mothers in similar circumstances get together and help each other. 

It would have been a hard heart that wouldn’t have been moved, especially when the mother shared her fears that her once dutiful and respectful son could end up either dead or terrorising old ladies as he turned to crime to feed his habit. It was incredibly brave to share this with listeners in the same way she had done with the Register’s readers. 

That courage, said South Coast MP Shelley Hancock, was exactly what was needed to make the community and local politicians sit up and take notice, and realise this ice problem was real and disrupting and derailing lives right here in the Shoalhaven. 

We urge everyone who has been touched by ice or knows others who have to keep an eye on this paper for details of the forum and to attend it. Only a community-wide approach to the problem can have a chance of overcoming it.