two Bermuda representatives who attended the 1993 PRIDE World Drugs Conference in Cincinnati say they are frustrated by the lack of support shown by Bermuda's leaders.

Mrs. Joanne Gibson and Mrs. Joyce Eve joined 10,000 delegates (6,000 youths and 4,000 adults) from around the world for the annual gathering of PRIDE (Parent Resource Institute for Drug Education) at the huge Albert Sabin Convention Centre.

"I don't feel that Government is serious about the effort to educate our young people and to conquer the spread of drugs in Bermuda,'' says PRIDE committee member, Mrs. Eve.

"There were a lot of people who wanted to go and should have gone but could not get sponsorship. There is so much help and information from dedicated professionals that's available, but Bermuda is just not taking advantage of it,'' she says.

Noting that the philosophy behind PRIDE emphasises that even in these days of broken families, parental instinct still remains the most effective weapon in protecting children from drug involvement, PRIDE treasurer Mrs. Gibson says she is disappointed that Bermuda was one of the few countries that did not send governmental delegates to the conference.

"PRIDE's programmes and methods are tried and tested. It makes sense for us to use them. But there was no-one from Government at that conference. We parents, who are members of PRIDE, are only volunteers and cannot make decisions. We have no powers to put programmes in place. People from Addiction Services and Montrose should have been there.'' PRIDE's resources in Bermuda were only able to provide funding for two representatives, even though they are supported by an annual appeal from local companies.

Mrs. Gibson feels that in the US, there is a far greater community involvement in the fight against substance abuse than she has seen in Bermuda.

"There were doctors, lawyers, police, prison officers, teachers, all taking an active part and getting really involved.'' Mrs. Gibson is even more convinced, having attended the conference, that the most effective way of conquering the Island's drug problem is to have all these sections of the community joining forces.

"They had a wonderful forum, where all these people, parents and teens gave presentations and then had a question and answer period. I liked the way a whole cross-section of the community were tackling things together and that is what's needed here if we are serious about drugs,'' she adds.

During five packed days of lectures, presentations and workshops, they were able to bring themselves up to date on the latest teaching methods and materials used in getting the anti-drug message across.

"There are teachers' guides, parents' guides, comic-type books that attract children, entire school programmes planned out for every grade and Bermuda could so easily be taking advantage of that,'' says Mrs. Eve, adding that PRIDE issues "menus'' which set out detailed training schemes, using a combination of pictorial texts and videos and even including suggested dialogues.

"We have the heart and drive, but not always the skill to present it. This programme provides the skill.'' They believe that attendance at the conference made them aware of many aspects of the drug culture and PRIDE's approaches in trying to combat the problem.

Although the organisation is seen primarily as a black group in Bermuda, this is certainly not the case in the US or internationally, where blacks make up a minority membership.

One of the key speakers was Mr. Milton Creagh, who has previously spoken at PRIDE's annual Bermuda conference. Mrs. Gibson says that his talk brought out some interesting points to digest.

He told the conference that what are perceived as being racial differences within a community are often culture differences and that the culture typical of a particular country or region often affects the way in which the drug culture is addressed.

"For instance,'' she says, "we were told to be aware of cultural differences and to illustrate this, he divided people into two groups. `High context' people tend to be highly emotive and include Hispanics, Afro-Americans, Italians, Greeks and so on, while `low contexts' would be North Europeans, white Americans and Asians.

"The point of this is that it requires a different kind of speaker to appeal to different groups and he used the example of two preachers, both using exactly the same words. But a white preacher would present it differently to a black preacher. He said that this can be applied throughout society and especially in the classroom. He said that teachers who are trying to cope with highly emotional Latino-types, for instance, tend to label them as noisy and hyper-active. What he was saying is that it is important for the speaker's message to be tailor-made for the audience that is being addressed.'' The two representatives say that they also left the conference feeling that there was far more acceptance in the US and other countries that all levels of society are involved in drugs.

"In Bermuda, there is still this perception that the problem of drugs evolves around kids and on the streets. Nobody here seems willing to address the business side of drug dealing and that it is the adult dealers who need to be targeted. There still seems to be a lot of naivete about drugs here,'' says Mrs. Eve.

Because of that, both representatives feel that Bermuda urgently needs to come up with the sort of carefully structured programmes of education devised by PRIDE that "gets the message across'' to all cultures within Bermuda and every age group.

MORE PRIDE NEEDED -- Mrs. Joyce Eve (left) and Mrs. Joanne Gibson, who recently attended this year's PRIDE Conference in Cincinatti, believe that Bermuda should give more support to the largest anti-drug gathering in the US.