throughout the community.

The current series of stories was sparked by a Police announcement that the recent increase in crime appeared to be due to increased use in the drug.

This newspaper then decided to try to dig deeper into the problem to find out how widespread it is, why heroin, more than most drugs, causes other forms of crime, and what can be done about it.

Our stories over the last week show that use of the drug is widespread and affects whole families. The fact that there are users as young as 12 or 13 is a national scandal. And the power of the drug is such that people will do anything to get money to buy more.

What can be done? Clearly, imprisonment alone is not the answer. Nor is interdiction, although clearly that must continue. Addicts seem to have easy access to the drug while in prison and that is an indictment of the entire prison service. Rehabilitation in the prisons does not seem to be working either. Nor do there seem to be adequate rehab services outside the prisons.

Bermuda needs a national campaign to eradicate this menace, drawing on the resources of the Police, the still-abirthing Drugs Court, the National Drugs Commission and the many private charities and counselling services dealing with addiction and drug abuse and the agencies which help families and young people.

This needs to start now before this problem gets completely out of hand and should have as its goal the complete eradication of heroin abuse in this community.

Volunteers May is Heritage Month and the theme for 2001 is volunteerism.

It is hard to think of a more appropriate theme for Bermuda, which must have more volunteers per capita than any other country in the world.

Without volunteers, Bermuda's youth really would have nothing to do, most sports organisations would not exist, the work of hundreds of volunteers in social services would have to be replaced using taxpayer's money, most popular events would not happen, schools would not benefit from PTAs and so on.

Bermuda would be a poorer place in all senses without the thousands of people who give of their time to help others.

There may have been a time when many volunteers were housewives or those from the "leisure classes'' who had time to devote themselves to good works.

Today, most volunteers are people who make time in their own busy schedules to give something back. It is vital that the community does not take its volunteers for granted.

Having said that, most charities and organisations which depend on volunteers will say that the greatest challenge they face is finding new people to come in and help.

It is also a truism that on most committees, there are those who talk and those who do, and the doers are usually heavily outnumbered.

So those people who think they are too busy to help and those people who sign up but never attend the meetings or never volunteer to do the work should remember that there is no better feeling than giving and helping to make a difference in a person's life.

And to those people who have already figured that out, thank you.