A mum has shared tragic images of her son to show the effects of drug addiction.
The photographs from Las Vegas mum Jennifer Salfen-Tracy have gone viral in a heartbreaking Facebook post describing her son, Cody Bishop as the "face of heroin and meth."
Jennifer said she had not seen her 26-year-old son for weeks saying he was in a deep spiral of addiction and possibly living on the streets in the US state of Nevada.
The devastating pictures were taken just seven months apart showing how Cody transformed from a beaming, healthy, fresh-faced looking young man, to an emaciated shadow of his former self, frowning and covered in sores.
The heartbroken mum urged her son to find her and get in touch, the Mirror reports.
She said: "These pictures were taken seven months apart. That is how fast someone is affected.
"Cody is still homeless in Las Vegas and I have not heard from him in weeks now. Hearing how bad he is doing is hard but not hearing at all is worse.
"I am hesitant on sharing but many people ask how things are going so I feel I should share. I have learned along this path that so many people and families deal with the same heartache but just do not talk about it.
"This is a true issue in our world today that we need to pull together and focus on to fix instead of the government worrying about and spending all their money on throwing each other under the bus."
The Facebook post in which the mum urged "let's get a hold of this issue America" has been shared nearly 40,000 times since it was posted two days ago.
A missing persons page said he had previously been reported missing to Las Vegas Police in May after his family reported concerns for his wellbeing.
It said his family had been unable to trace him after he did a stint in rehab in Nevada.
The post said he had been living homeless before, and was often with a girl called Kate, and urged anyone who came across him to contact the authorities.
