to claim television anti-drug commercials are useless because young people don't believe them.

Mr. Bridges, who gave a harrowing account of his own addiction to drugs and alcohol, said "just say no'' commercials were "hokey'' and were not working.

He said anti-drug campaigners had to be as subtle and sophisticated as the dealers who target youngsters by convincing them drugs are cool.

Mr. Bridges, who played Willis Jackson in the sitcom, warned that young people are being lost to drugs because society is "sugar-coating'' the message about how dangerous narcotics can be.

Speaking at the "Recognition, Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse'' conference at Bermuda College on Saturday, he said: "I wish `just say no' worked.

"But kids are conned and tricked by dealers and their friends who convince them that drugs are cool. Then they put some hokey commercial on. Who are they going to believe? "We have got to use the same tools that these guys are using to convince kids. We need to be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.

"We need to stop the sugar-coating. Sugar-coating is keeping our kids on drugs. If we don't start telling our kids today what is really going on, we are going to keep losing them.'' The conference, organised by the Good Shepherd Human Service Centre and the National Drug Commission, attracted an international audience of social workers, psychologists, lawyers and business people.

Among the speakers were Health Minister Nelson Bascome, National Drugs Commission Chief Executive Derrick Binns, and Sgt. Craig Thornton of the New York Police Department's Narcotics Division.

Mr. Bridges, 34, told the audience his late father physically abused himself and his mother, and that he himself felt he had a genetic addiction to alcohol.

Commercials do not work He said that at the height of his addiction, he was taking 28 grammes of cocaine a day, shooting up to six grammes of amphetamine, and binging on alcohol.

Because of his violent behaviour, he was suspended from school 180 times and expelled from eight schools in Los Angeles.

Mr. Bridges, who has been off drugs and alcohol for seven years, recalled: "Television was like a saviour to me. That was the only time my father wasn't around us was when me and my mother were on the set.

"When the garage opened, that's when the fear started because no one wanted to to be around my dad. At an early age, I started trying my dad's alcohol to cope.'' He was arrested for attempted murder and cleared in 1989 after a man was shot.

He was charged with attempted murder and cleared a second time when he beat up a man in self-defence who had broken into his house.

Mr. Bridges said he learned that 95 percent of his problems were down to himself and that he did not begin to recover until people who were helping him stopped.

At his lowest point, he said he was "a crack head on the street with no shoes, no money in my pocket trying to figure out where I can get high again.

"People would say to me I had everything, I had money and fame, but I didn't have me. Most people in entertainment don't have themselves.'' Mr. Bridges, who now has a child, said his salvation came through Christ. He said the key to saving children from drugs was for parents to step back and make their children help themselves.

"I say to parents: `You are going to be responsible for your own child's death through helping them'.

"When my mother stopped helping me, that was the best thing that happened to me because I realised I had to care for myself. People have got to be allowed to float or sink.

"If you truly want to help someone, stop helping them. It is sad because some people will die of this disease, but that's the chance, because we are not helping them.'' DRUGS DGS