"John* was a tiny baby but so beautiful," mum Sarah* remembers.

His father died when he was a child but there was always extended family around.

In high school he got involved with the wrong crowd.

"At 15 he was smoking marijuana," Sarah said.

""He would have these mood swings, hitting me, smashing things.

"He was never normally like that."

When the high from marijuana would wear off he would become "agitated, wanting more".

Sarah couldn't wait for John's schooling to be over.

She would tell herself things would improve when he left school.

But instead of improving when John left school his addiction escalated.

He wanted a bigger hit and started dabbling in other drugs including ice.

"It led to a life of crime," she said.

"He got put into custody and then the only way to get him out there was to be bailed to a rehab clinic," she said.

He improved in rehab but when he spent Christmas back in Port Macquarie it all went awry.

"He went back to his old haunts and picked up ice again," she said.

"He hit me on the head with a bottle and tipped the rest over my head.

"I knew he was back on."

Sarah said she felt "frightened and numb".

The next day she drove him back to the Central Coast where he was based.

He again spiralled out of control: "Homelessness and crime," she said.

She was harassed for months from dealers saying her son owned them money.

"They would say if you don't send money we are going to kill him," she said. "Lies, violence and crime."

She eventually had a nervous breakdown from the stress. Soon her son was arrested again. He is now in jail.

Sarah believes drugs are a choice.

"There are three choices, rehab, jail or death, that is what it is," she said.

While she still visits her son in jail those meetings are difficult.

"I love my son but I don't like him," she said.

She describes herself as a "broken" woman.

The NSW government established a Special Commission of Inquiry into the "nature, prevalence and impact of ice in NSW" in November 2018.

The inquiry visited numerous regional NSW centres.

The four-volume report of the Special Commission of Inquiry was handed to the Governor of NSW, Margaret Beazley, at Government House on Tuesday, January 28.

* Names have been to changed to protect the identity of those involved in this story