The much heralded campaign to rid the St. Monica's mission area of drug dealing has apparently ground to a halt.

How or why that happened is unclear and Government MP Ottiwell Simmons, who has spent a number of years leading the crusade against the scourge, is more than a little disappointed at the National Drug Commission, the publicly funded body charged with tackling the scourge.

In 1999 the Community Action Group, formed by fellow area MP Nelson Bascome and Mr. Simmons, as well as a broad group of residents, launched the grassroots campaign with the aim of luring the drug pushers into more positive ways of spending their time and earning a living.

“It was a programme that had promise and hope,” said Mr. Simmons. “I don't know how the hell it happened. It was a model programme in my view that could have been replicated in other parts of the Island and for it to come to a standstill is heartbreaking.”

Other area residents share Mr. Simmons' despair but not what they say is his soft approach to the drug dealers in the area.

Mr. Simmons added that the National Drug Commission (NDC) was to blame because it had abandoned the effort. But it appears the project has become the victim of burnout and frustration among community activists and rapid personnel turnover at the NDC.

And while some other members of the community are throwing up their hands in despair, Health and Social Services Minister Nelson Bascome is saying all is not lost and the crusade will continue.

“I suppose you could call it a standstill,” he admitted.

Mr. Bascome stopped short of saying that his running mate was suffering community activism burnout.

“Otti (Simmons) and I have been at it for a long time... so I can understand he gets frustrated, especially when you have an organisation that should have and would have provided a lot more manpower resources,” the Minister said.

“But we never waited for Government in the past,” he added, pointing out that in the last six months alone the NDC had seen a 100 percent staff turnover.

“A new broom sweeps clean,” is Mr. Simmons' response to that defence. “It does not stop sweeping.”

Known for years as “42nd Street” because of persistent drug dealing activity, the neighbourhood was touted as a potential beacon of hope for the Island's other drug ridden areas.

In April last year Mr. Simmons admitted that progress was slow but insisted that the group would continue its efforts “with every bit of vigour, energy and enthusiasm we can muster”. This weekend he was not nearly as enthusiastic.

“I can tell you I am disappointed, very disappointed,” Mr. Simmons told The Royal Gazette. He said the NDC had dropped the ball early this year, not too long after the group had approached them suggesting a partnership. After 18 months of monthly meetings and some successful community events, said Mr. Simmons, the multi-million dollar budgeted agency with a mandate to tackle the drug scourge, simply lost steam and wouldn't call any more meetings.

This newspaper's repeated requests during the last few weeks to the NDC for an update on the project yielded nothing.

CEO Cristina Weininger, who only two months ago took over the helm of the NDC, said there was nothing the agency was prepared to share with the press at this time.

In the House of Assembly on Friday, Mr. Bascome boasted that the agency's budget had been tripled since the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) came into office.

He said then that the new CEO was “redesigning” the Island's drug war strategy.

“They are not playing their role,” complained Mr. Simmons. “We had to rely on them because that's what they are there for.”

The NDC provided administrative support, and at one point organised a community fun day, while the group did much of the leg work.

“The programme was working,” insisted a clearly irate Mr. Simmons. “When we were on the brink of involving the churches and the (Bermuda) Regiment Band, they just stopped the meetings.”

The NDC, he said, complained that there was not enough community involvement. But Mr. Simmons denies that. “When you look at the composition of the group, the whole community was very much involved and in my view it was working very well.”

He added: “It was like we were on the crest of a wave and there was no reason for us to go down. There were no disagreements, no acrimony or anything I could trace to say the thing should stop. I've never seen anything like it.”

“It's like a pond fire,” he said when asked whether drug dealing had lessened over the last three years, harkening back to the days the Pembroke dump would break out into deep fires, blanketing the area. “It quietens down then flares up again.”

Meetings were held to find solutions and the drug pushers were engaged in conversation in the initial stages of the grassroots campaign.

Soon after the volunteer group of activists began working hand in hand with professionals from the National Training Board and Social Services, and the group began to claim some minor but significant successes.

And the Works and Engineering department chipped in by resurfacing roads and repairing fences and broken street lights.

It was felt then that cosmetic changes would help restore pride in the area. Area churches were also recruited into the campaign.

Joy Wilson Tucker, a member of the Community Action Group, who has spent her entire life in the area, shares Mr. Simmons' despair but not his softly softly approach to what after all are people breaking the law.

Block parties and handing out NDC produced flyers had had no effect whatsoever on hardened drug dealers, many of whom don't even live in the area, she said. But she argues that the NDC is not to blame for the fact that the grassroots campaign is now at a standstill. “I don't know what he expected them to do... Mr. Simmons has to realise those lot from the National Drug Commission don't live up there.”

The fact that the majority of the drug dealers don't live there either, agreed Mr. Bascome, is the project's biggest challenge.

Mr. Simmons, as chairman of the committee, could have made sure the meetings continue, said Mrs. Wilson Tucker.

“I don't know how it happened or why it happened... But I think the members themselves wanted a different approach.”

She added that the group should not have depended on the NDC in the first place. “What results have we had from them? I don't know whether it (drug dealing) will ever be eradicated,” she said. What had helped was the building of two new homes by the Bermuda Housing Corporation, area resident Wayne Bradshaw's tutoring programme which has taken at least three young men off the streets and an enhanced police presence in the area. “I don't know who gets them (the Police) there but whoever it is, God bless them,” she told this newspaper.

“Mr. Simmons was hell bent on not locking up our boys, which you can do to a certain point, but it's either shape up or else. And they weren't shaping up.”

She said the older drug dealers were a lost cause and the focus needed to be on the younger people who were sometimes an all too easy source of new recruits to the trade.

The drug scourge had not escaped even her own family members, she said. But she declined to elaborate.

“I don't think we should,” she said when asked if she had given up. “Me personally, I'm going to protect my own and if that sounds selfish, may God forgive me.”