The National Drug Commission has disclosed plans to carry out a national survey to find out how many adults are on drugs.

"Who knows how many we have in the adult population who are addicted to drugs?,'' NDC chief Mr. Mansfield Brock said.

"We have a good handle on the problem in the schools with the student surveys but we don't know about the rest of the population.'' Mr. Brock said the NDC hoped to carry out the survey in the next few months.

And an overseas agency would be hired to conduct the first one, he said.

"We are talking to the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, the Canadians and the Americans,'' he said. "We don't know who we'll choose yet but we hope and expect that the person or organisation will show the local researchers how to do it.'' The survey's findings will be the basis for expanding Addiction Services.

According to coordinator Mr. Bryant Richards it is currently treating around 80 mostly heroin users and has a waiting list of at least 50 other drug addicts.

"Before we can really design a plan of action or strategy to attack the drug problem we have to know the dimensions, the severity, the incidence of that problem -- how big it is and how fast it's growing. All we have at the moment is anecdotal evidence,'' Mr. Brock said.

He revealed plans for the survey after a joint statement by the NDC and Health Ministry this week to announce a private drug counselling agency had been hired to help restructure the long-troubled Addiction Services public drug treatment centre, which recently lost a longtime employee due to mounting frustration.

Mr. Brock said the NDC was aware the centre needed to be expanded, but it did not know to what extent exactly.

The statement said the NDC had hired the local employee assistance agency Benedict Associates to help the Ministry of Health in "a six-month restructuring of Addiction Services'' slated to start this month.

Mr. Brock conceded to The Royal Gazette the delay in the overhaul was the NDC's fault.

"We were only set up in January 1994 and I think it's true to say the Ministry of Health was ready to go and so was Addiction Services and Management Services, but they were courteous enough to wait on us to get in gear.'' The overhaul had been planned for several years and was not a direct result of the recent controversy surrounding original counsellor Mrs. Gryneth Robinson's departure, he said.

Mrs. Robinson, who had a counsellor with Addiction Services since 1984, had called for sweeping changes to the programme as she left.

The overhaul will be spearheaded by managing director of Benedict's Mr. Vaughn Mosher, a former member of the Misuse of Drugs Advisory Board who has established treatment programmes overseas for the US Government and locally with the development of Montrose Substance Abuse Centre's successful programme.

He will be assisted by employees Mrs. Susan Boyd, Mr. Nelson Bascome and Ms Laurie Peniston.

"The project will result in improvements to its administrative structure, information systems and record keeping,'' the joint statement said.

"The move by the NDC and the Ministry is aimed at improving the agency's overall treatment capabilities and increasing the number of people who can be treated by Addiction Services.'' Its case management and reporting systems would be improved, Mr. Brock said.

He said Addiction Services coordinator Mr. Richards was "100 percent supportive'' of the overhaul and was part of the decision making process.

Last October Mrs. Robinson vented her frustrations with Addiction Services, saying sweeping changes were needed.

"If by leaving Addiction Services, someone will have a look at the programme and improve it, then, far from deserting my clients, I will have helped them out,'' she had said.

She called for better management, even workloads for counsellors, improved treatment for heroin addicts; and more accountability of staff to the public who pay their wages.

Calling her workload "horrendous'', she said her efforts to expand Addiction Services were repeatedly thwarted.

And she claimed her calls for advance planning to tackle the mounting problem of heroin users went unheeded.

Mrs. Robinson, who lost a daughter to what was thought to be a drug-related death, is now a counsellor at Fair Havens, the centre which cares for female drug addicts.