Sandys Parish area to help them clean-up the West End. The plea is to the people to help stop anti-social behaviour and to discourage those who perpetrate street crime, in particular drug dealing. It should, of course, be clear that anti-social behaviour and street crime are often associated with drugs.

At the meeting it was emphasised that the problems would not stop until the community said "enough''. The problem is that a small minority of people are causing both fear and annoyance in any number of Bermudian communities where the basic residents are both law abiding and anxious to live their lives without fear and without threats. Many of these residents have been in the area for a long time and those who own their own homes cannot simply pack up and move out of the neighbourhoods. Yet they find their lives becoming uncomfortable and their property values declining.

This is not only true of Sandys Parish, where Tuesday evening's meeting took place, but of other areas throughout these Islands. The drug culture has had an impact on Bermuda out of proportion to the number of people who are heavily involved in drugs. But we should not be confused. Drugs are spread throughout Bermuda and those who buy from dealers located in troubled areas often return to use the drugs in areas where there is no obvious problem.

Speaking at Tuesday's meeting, Police Chief Insp. Roger Bryden said: "It's wrong for people to feel there is a huge crime wave sweeping through the Island. There are certain people who do these things and when we catch them the crime figures go down.'' That seems to be a good analysis of the situation, but the fact remains that people often return to the scene and create yet another wave. Some of that, of course, has to do with a need for rehabilitation.

Bermuda is certainly not unique in having areas where drugs impact heavily on living conditions. That has been the nature of drug abuse in most countries.

It is true that with the help of the Police and other agencies, residents of communities can go a long way toward their own clean-up if they have the will to do so. That takes leadership and the Sandys group of the Western Consultative Committee which held Tuesday's meeting may be on its way just by getting the problems out in the open.

Bermuda is so small that these troubled areas are much more visible. Yet efforts to remove the problem in one area, often simply mean a move to another area. At the root of the problem is a need to curtail the demand for drugs.

Curtailing demand is the hard way to go, but in the end it is the only way to success.