Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has spoken publicly about her inability to help her 21-year-old son recover from his addiction to the drug ice.

Senator Lambie told ABC’s 7.30 program she asked her son to leave home about two-and-a-half months ago because “things were going missing”.

“He started dabbling in ice a few years ago and that’s now gathered momentum and he’s been struggling to deal with ice itself,” she said.

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“He was becoming erratic and I just had no idea what he was going to do next.

“When you’re getting to the point where you’ve got to lock your bag and that up, then I shouldn’t have to live under those conditions.

“So for the safety of myself and somebody else that is in my house, the best thing to do was to ask him to leave.”

The Senate is debating legislation that would strip welfare payments from people who have been charged with a serious offence and are being held in psychiatric confinement.

Earlier on Monday, Senator Lambie told the Chamber she would take the “hard road” and oppose the legislation, telling the Government to think “more broadly” about mental health and drug addiction.

“I am a senator of Australia and I have a 21-year-old son that has a problem with ice, and yet even with my title I have no control over my son,” she said.

“I can’t involuntarily detox my own son, because I am not talking to my son anymore, I’m talking to a drug.

“And I can tell you, I’m not the only parent out there. There is [sic] thousands of us.”

According to the senator the people who would be affected by the legislation were in a special category because they were not in control of their actions.

“It is very easy to take a populist position and vote for legislation that takes a hard line against people who are alleged to have committed terrible crimes and have serious mental illnesses,” she said.

“The harder position is to oppose this legislation on the basis that it undermines basic civil rights and the chance for quicker recovery for people who are very sick.”

Senator wants laws so parents can force children into rehab

Senator Lambie is instead calling for national legislation that would enable parents to force their drug-addicted children into rehabilitation.

“Getting some involuntary detox so the parents can take control of the child’s situation and get the kids the help they need is the best way forward,” she said.

The drug ‘ice’ sitting on a benchtop.

Although she warned Australia did not have enough rehabilitation centres to fight the ice epidemic.

In Senator Lambie’s home state, the Tasmanian Government is putting nearly $5 million into new drug and alcohol detox beds.

One of the clinics vying for some of the new beds is Serenity House in Burnie where there is a three-week wait for the five beds the facility currently has.

The Tasmanian senator said the impact of ice was “phenomenal”, and warned addicts would end up one of three ways.

“They will end up on a slab, they will end up in these mental institutions, they will end up killing somebody else because of their actions because they don’t have control of the drug,” Senator Lambie said.

After her Senate speech, Liberal senator Chris Back thanked Senator Lambie for sharing her personal story.

“There is no community in Australia that’s protected or immune from this absolute scourge,” he said.

However Senator Back spoke in favour of the Government’s bill, saying there was no justification to pay welfare benefits to people who were already being taken care of by the state.

“Their needs would be met by the state or territory,” he said.

“The only difference in this circumstance is that the people about whom we speak have been determined to not be able to stand trial.”

NT Police Minister talks of son’s addiction

On Sunday, Northern Territory Police Minister Peter Chandler revealed his son Brandon, 21, had also been battling an addiction with ice.

NT politician Peter Chandler and son Brandon, who has admitted an addiction to the drug ice.

Mr Chandler said he had previously kicked out his son, along with his girlfriend and her daughter, from the family home due to pressures caused by the drug.

“I felt betrayed, [my wife] Robyn was in tears and we as a family didn’t know what to do. You think ‘where have I failed as a father’?” he said.

Earlier this year Prime Minister Tony Abbott launched a national task force to help tackle the growing and deadly scourge of ice.

In the meantime, the West Australian Government is going to unusual lengths to gauge the extent of Perth’s ice problem.

Police Minister Liza Harvey has revealed plans to test the water at three metropolitan wastewater plants to find out how many people were using the drug.

“Because it’s an illegal drug, it’s difficult to determine how widespread the use of it is,” she told Fairfax radio.

“And what this testing shows us is the metabolites that are broken down after meth has been processed, obviously that gets excreted and we can measure the amount of metabolites in the black water waste.”

WA Police have also formed special “meth teams” to pursue traffickers across state borders.

Western Australia has the highest ice use in the nation according to the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey – 3.8 per cent of the population aged over 14 admitted to using the drug. The national average is 2.1 per cent.

-ABC