Bermuda, Royal Gazette senior reporter John Burchall talks to drug treatment experts about the impact of the drug on the community.

Proper analysis and inter-agency cooperation are fundamental if useful national policies are ever going to be drawn up in the fight against heroin and other harmful drugs.

Until that time, it is impossible to gauge how big the problem is or how broadly it has spread.

Dr. Derrick Binns, research officer for the National Drug Commission, wants to see a central body of data collected so that policies can target areas that are most in need.

"No one has really started to measure the general trends,'' he said. "And we at the NDC are trying to find ways to measure drug use and treatment for all drugs.

"Right now there is no mechanism in place. I can offer opinions and anecdotal guesses and say that heroin is on the upswing and that users are younger because they have no memory of the bad old days of AIDS. Some of the data I have seen would support that proposition but it is not detailed enough to say that for a fact.'' Dr. Binns said he was working out a system whereby he could collect, collate and measure the trends in drug use across various populations.

This would involve a central database from which national policy could be developed.

"We could then track national trends and patterns and I could then say categorically that heroin, or cocaine or cannabis use, is increasing or decreasing and to which populations that applies.'' At the moment, Dr. Binns said, that many of the agencies such as Addiction Services, the Salvation Army and Montrose Substance Abuse Centre, all did their own thing.

Consequently, there is no sharing of information, or problems or trends because each deals with its own client base and all interactions are limited to that.

Moreover, Dr. Binns said that the private agencies and the Employee Assistance Programme also dealt with their own clientele exclusively with little sharing in between.

Dr. Binns said that there are other systems such as the Criminal Justice Information system which has been a valuable aid as well as those figures and statistics kept at the hospitals.

"What we need to do is to get all this stuff together so that we can get a better picture and this is where the NDC comes in.'' Dr. David Archibald's triannual high school survey began in 1983 and was followed by the triannual adult survey in 1985.

Heroin high `is not a panacea' "Right now all the agencies are doing an effective job within their own prescribed areas and all of us could benefit if there was readily available data.

"We could all get a better, fuller picture of the problem across the whole island. It will be a tool to assist all of us.'' Dr. Binns said that each agency caters to its own population.

"The people that go to the EAP won't be the same as the ones that go to Addiction Services unless those agencies refer clients between them.

"Montrose will see another slice of the Bermudian drug using population and then the private agencies will see a different group again.'' The NDC is currently liaising with the EAP who have been collecting data since they began their work ten years ago.

With 165 companies and close to 13,000 employees and their immediate families on board, the EAP serves half the population or more than 30,000 residents.

"Our information suggests that heroin, having been kept at a distance, is starting to regain its attractiveness,'' EAP executive director Deborah Carr said.

"We at the EAP have one foot in corporate Bermuda and one foot in the community. We are the middle seat. We refer our clients elsewhere if that is needed or we may do short term counselling at our offices.'' In the ten years of its existence, Mrs. Carr said the EAP had not seen people coming in with heroin addiction.

"People with addictions to cannabis, crack cocaine and alcohol are far more prevalent in our practice than any others,'' she explained. "There was a smattering of ecstasy but not much of that.

"We have not found our clients reporting that heroin was their primary drug.

It was something they may have tried once or twice in a recreational setting like a party.

"They find that it takes away stress unlike cocaine. But so far no heroin has been detected in any of the random drug tests carried out in the work place.'' The reason, Mrs. Carr surmised, is that heroin slows the user down so much that he or she cannot function in the workplace.

Conversely, cocaine abuse was more compatible with the pressurised environment of the workplace because it gave the user energy, drive and an alertness that made them able to work for long periods.

"Managers are better able today as a result of education to detect the symptoms of drug abuse.

"But I can see in the not too distant future a situation where parents seek out help because they are unable to cope with their teenaged children who are heroin addicts.

"The children are at risk because they do not see heroin as a bad drug. Our job at the EAP will be to educate parents so that they can recognise the signs and symptoms of heroin use or abuse.

"The current generation of parents are unfamiliar with heroin. So we will work through our agency to teach parents to recognise the paraphernalia, smells and other signs that their child has a problem.

"It is our role to provide information to our clients in an easily digestible form.'' Meanwhile, Mrs. Carr said that parents must face the heroin menace squarely and tell their children the truth.

"If you tell your children that drugs are bad and then they try them and have a pleasurable experience there is a conflict.

"They must be told that the short lived high they receive is not a panacea.'' Tomorrow: How the Police and Customs tackle heroin.

HEROIN THE FACTS Changes in heroin use among secondary school students 1991-1994.

2.2 percent of the 3,000 students surveyed in 1994 had tried heroin their lifetimes, compared to 1.6 percent in 1991.

1.6 percent of students had taken it at least once in the last 12 months in 1994 compared to 1.2 percent in 1991.

Eight of ten students surveyed who admitted trying heroin had done so by age 14.

In 1991, 15.6 percent of students said heroin would be easy to obtain. In 1994, 17.2 percent said it would be easy to obtain.

Source: Bermuda Secondary School Drugs Surveys 1991 and 1994 conducted by Research Innovations Ltd.

Dr. Derrick Binns