A recovered heroin addict who went on to found a US drug rehabilitation centre said Bermuda would never defeat the scourge through Police crackdowns and imprisonment.

Israel Cason told a Bermudians Against Narcotics rally a possible solution was to get recovering junkies to help existing addicts.

"People always say experts need to do it but may I remind you that experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch."

More than 120 people defied looming rain clouds to gather at St. George's square for the rally.

Mr. Cason, who founded the Baltimore "I can't, We can" programme, said addiction affected people from all walks of life, not just people on "skid row".

"I came from a good family, my mother was a preacher and my father was a deacon," he said. "In my neighbourhood there were 'exciting' people and I decided I wanted to be a hustler. I had no knowledge of what the lifestyle was but I thought it looked more exciting than being a preacher."

"I was a heroin addict for 30 years. Despite that I managed to maintain a business and family. I owned my house. I thought I was fine and didn't realise that instant gratification would bring lifelong pain.The disease is progressive and chronic. It comes on so slow you can adapt to it and don't realise it has happened."

"In the end the same drug I took to kill the pain became the very thing that caused the pain. It's a vicious cycle. I wound up sleeping in my car in a parking lot for the last two years of my addiction.

"Pain is a universal motivator. It motivates you to change you lifestyle or continue getting worse. I needed to feel that pain before I realised I had to change my lifestyle."

Minister of Drug Control, Wayne Perinchief, spoke later at the rally and said that Mr. Cason's message about pain was pertinent to Bermuda.

"In Bermuda we never allow the pain to get too much that they have to leave. Mothers enable their sons to be weak, tough love is needed on this Island.

"Brother Cason brought that message home to me. I know how hard it can be. I had a son who used drugs and caused me so much pain I didn't know if I wanted him alive or dead sometimes. But we need to stop enabling our sons and allow them to reach the pain that will motivate them."

Saafir Rabb, another "I can't, We can" official, said the Baltimore programme had helped 9,000 addicts since 1997, 6,750 of whom have remained clean and sober.

He said the programme was spiritually based and looked to change the lifestyle of addicts. Another aim was to remove the desire to associate with drugs.

A main feature of the programme was empowering addicts to help each other. And another key to its success was self sufficiency. There was no reliance on Government grants.

"The programme is unique in that it is not set up to be a burden on society or the government," he said. "It is set up to be self sustaining, we set up businesses that provide revenue to fund the recovery programme."

Mr. Rabb said that the organisation had come to help BAN in anyway possible and hoped that a similar programme could be established on the Island.

Mr. Cason said it was important to realise that recovery takes a holistic approach.

"Recovery and sobriety are two very different things," he said. "After I went to rehab with a cousin I came out and realised everyone that I had hung around with was still a junkie. If I didn't change the people around me I would have been drawn back in."

"I had to change my lifestyle, morals and belief. Each phase involves difficulties. Change equals stress, but in the difficulties is the ease ? it does get better. If we endure the pain the rewards are great."

Mr. Cason also said the drug problem on the Island had reached an alarming rate and needed to be properly addressed.

"Bermuda needs to realise it will only get worse if we don't do something. We cannot Police our way out. We cannot incarcerate our way out. We've tried that and all we end up with are more prisons The solution is in the problem, we get recovering addicts to help out current addicts. People always say experts need to do it but may I remind you that experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch."