Jack Straw should not and must not resign. Only self-opinionated people - the ones who wear 'blinkers' and shut out the realities of life, or those with selfish or ulterior motives - would disagree.

They have no idea what it is like to be involved in the world of drugs.

People think that drug addicts are lazy, layabout, scum. But, please, remember these were once our beautiful innocent children who grew up to be vulnerable, inquisitive, energetic teenagers and were persuaded to try it just the once to see what it is like.

Remember also that we still love them, the person. It is only the things that they do we hate - the drugs.

My son is an ex-drug addict. I say 'ex' because that's how he would describe himself now. He is at last being as positive as it is possible to be and is enjoying his normal young life for the first time in eight years.

He is 24. He has been involved with drugs since he was 16. He managed to come off seven times, but always went back - mostly because of lack of help and long waiting lists at drug centres and rehabilitation centres.

The last time he came off was successful because he received help at last. He managed to get a place (after waiting four months) in a drug rehabilitation centre away from Blackburn. These are the sort of places that Jack Straw is trying to make more available.

He was there six months. He has now been living back at home with us for four months. That makes 10 months off drugs - hard drugs - the longest time he has ever been "clean". People say that cannabis is not so bad. My son would disagree. That is how it all starts. One drug leads to another.

Once they get used to it, they want more. Then, come the harder drugs. Some people say this is not true. Believe me, it is - my son is living proof.

Our lives have been hell. Our well-respected, middle class lives. Both my husband and I run our own small businesses. We have a lovely home and our children were brought up to respect others and were always well behaved.

We have three other children; two of them are now married with good jobs and beautiful families of their own and one is still at school.

But we could never sit back and "enjoy" the contentment of all that because one of us was missing. He became another person.

We had all the usual problems associated with drugs that nowadays most people know about, including visiting my son in prison - the most hurtful heart-rending, humiliating thing I have ever had to do - and, worse, visiting him in hospital after he tried to end his life. They said there was help - but where was it? Phone numbers in the book were either unavailable, or the person I spoke to did not have any answers.

They don't know what to say to you or advise you what to do when your son is tearing out his hair because he wants a fix, or trashing his room in a temper or more or less holding you to ransom in your house until you give him money.

When the Lancashire Evening Telegraph started the 'Drive our Drugs' campaign, it was like a breath of fresh air. At long last, people were beginning to care.

Believe me, being the mother of an addict is like living in hell. No-one to turn to. No one to talk to. The demands of our child. No one knows what it is like unless you are experiencing it.

And this is exactly why Jack Straw must go on. Now, he will understand more than ever what we go through and what it is like.

He must carry on with the drugs campaign. He is absolutely right when he says that this could happen to anybody - no matter who you are.

Name and address received.

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