Minister of Health and Social Services told the House of Assembly on Monday.

The statement makes us wonder if Bermuda must always hide its head in the sand. It has been clear for years that such behaviour was relatively common in other places. What made anyone think that it would not happen here? It takes us back to the late 1960s when Bermudians denied and denied and denied this newspaper's suggestions that drugs were happening here and did nothing about it until it was too late. How many times have we read and hear that in other places children were being used as drug couriers because their penalties are light if they are caught and using children spares adults heavy sentences. Drug pushers are concerned only with money and not with the niceties of life. We must have been exposed to the fact hundreds of times yet we seem surprised that it can happen in Bermuda. We all know that just about everything which happens in the United States lands here a little later.

The Minister, Quinton Edness, suggests that tough legislation may be brought to clamp down on those who exploit the young for drug money. That's fine except that complicated drug laws are almost impossible to enforce and every time we enact one, the drug dealers find another avenue. There is far too much money to be made in drugs for dealers to be frightened off by some more rhetoric from the House of Assembly. People involved in drugs know that much of what is said is just a lot of political talk for voter consumption and that there will be very little action.

Political impact on the growing problem of drugs has already severely damaged Bermuda. People involved in the drug world in Bermuda virtually received both implied permission and encouragement from the Progressive Labour Party to continue their deadly trade. When the PLP refused on political grounds to cooperate with Dr. David Archibald and to contribute to his study of drugs they created a public perception in some areas of Bermuda that it was all right to be involved with drugs because the PLP did not mind. That, and the subsequent, politically-motivated disputes over membership of the National Drugs Commission, were the most damaging things done to Bermuda's fight against drugs in many, many years.

There are a great many laws pertaining to drugs now and more confusing laws which are difficult to enforce are not the answer. Even when the laws are applied, it is difficult to get convictions. There are people who firmly believe that the solution is for Bermuda to have laws which reflect zero tolerance for drugs and to try drugs cases with three judges instead of a jury.

We believe that Bermudians in general have always been very careful with their children and concerned for their children's welfare. We do not think that they will accept child abuse by drug pushers. The only solution to the problem of drugs is for the community to say a firm no...not in my house, not in my neighbourhood, not in my country. It may well be that tampering with Bermuda's children will lead to strong resolve against drugs.

But as this newspaper has stated before, most of the answers to the drugs problem are contained in Dr. Archibald's 1984 Royal Commission on Drugs and the more recent National Drugs Strategy.

These solutions -- which included promoting drugs and alcohol abuse education and increasing the availability of drugs rehabilitation programmes -- are laid out in the reports. Some are expensive to implement and all require wide public involvement if they are going to work.

But it is there, along with enforcement of the drugs laws that are already on the books, that the key to ending drug abuse lies -- not in the enactment of more laws.