editorials published in newspapers around the world.

These are published as a matter of interest for our readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Royal Gazette .

This Saturday, however, we published an excerpt from the Springfield, Ohio News-Sun which was very relevant to Bermuda.

The editorial noted that Ohio had emphasised punishment as a means of dealing with the drug epidemic and noted that the result had been a massive increase in the prison population, costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars.

The newspaper did not report on whether drug use had increased or declined as a result, but if Bermuda's experience is anything to go by, we suspect it has made little difference.

The editorial goes on to recommend that treatment and rehabilitation, ordered through drug courts, should be instituted instead. This makes sense for Bermuda too.

It seems to be clear that drug users are not getting the treatment they need in prison and are coming out with the same addictions with which they entered.

Work on a drugs court has been underway for some time now in Bermuda and earlier this month, new National Drugs Commission chairman Malcolm Butterfield said the court could be in place by the end of the year or early in 2000.

The NDC needs to keep moving on this, but a court is not the sole answer.

Changes in legislation are needed to enable people who admit to possession charges to receive treatment instead of prison sentences.

And there also need to be provisions for dealing with the people who refuse or fail to respond to treatment. To achieve all of this, money needs to be spent -- but treatment should prove to be cheaper than maintaining prison cells if the system is given a real chance to work.

At the same time, the people who sell drugs need to be dealt with through prison sentences, because if demand and supply can be cut, then Bermuda can solve the drugs problem.

SCHOOL BUILDING EDT School building Parents and students at Harrington Sound Primary School are right to be unhappy about possible delays in the rebuilding of the school.

When the fire at the school occurred, the Education Ministry moved quickly to find alternative accommodations for the students and deserved credit for having done so.

Nonetheless, the school has been split into two locations; the infants block at the school and the rest at the former Devon Lane School in Prospect. While this was good in the short term, it could be catastrophic over time.

Although Government officials have not confirmed that the re-opening of the school will be delayed, Works Minister Alex Scott has stated: "I don't think that any parent would want the whole project rushed along so that we put aside the notion of safety or we didn't upgrade the facility to provide more amenities.'' Of course safety and amenities should not be "put aside'' and it makes sense to take the opportunity to improve the school and give it facilities it needed but lacked before. But the school project deserves to be treated urgently by a Government that says education is a high priority.