maternity leave in the private sector are well founded.

Mothers, either before childbirth or in the first vital weeks after a child is born, should be entitled to a reasonable period of paid leave in order to give their newborns the nurturing they require.

This should be granted as a matter of course, without anxiety or tension.

There is no question that maternity leave -- and paternity leave for that matter -- is a considerable expense for the employer and can prove to be a burden for other staff members.

And it is particularly galling for an employer to have a staff member resign soon after returning from that leave.

But that does not mean that it is right to penalise the employee for a decision which she may not have even been considering beforehand.

Bermuda has not traditionally legislated regulations for maternity leave, operating on the assumption that employers and employees should be able to work these matters out for themselves -- but abuse of pregnant women, some of whom have no other financial support, is immoral, even if it is not illegal.

Refusal of maternity leave rights is also a form of discrimination, albeit one which may get less attention because only half of the population is a potential victim of it.

In a humane society which increasingly recognises that the first few weeks of a human's life are the most crucial, there is no room for companies to refuse maternity leave or to cause a new parent financial insecurity.

NEW ALLIES EDT New allies News that the National Drugs Commission and the Council Partners are to join forces in the campaign to reduce drug abuse should be welcomed.

As NDC chairman Malcolm Butterfield admitted yesterday, there is a perception that the two bodies, one public, one private, have not worked together as closely as they could or should.

And the division in responsibility between the NDC and the Council Partners should mean there will be fewer conflicts in the area.

Under the deal, the NDC will set national drugs policy in consultation with the Council Partners and other agencies while the Council Partners will raise funds and distribute them to agencies implementing the national policy.

Assuming that the policy selected is workable and has support from a wide range of agencies, this initiative should be able to drive the reduction of drug abuse forward.

The fact that the NDC and the Council Partners will together fund and administer a pool of funds dedicated to public education and public awareness on all aspects of substance abuse is especially important.

There is evidence from the latest school drugs survey that drug abuse in the schools is on the decline and much of the credit for that should be given to the heavy awareness programmes being run in the schools.

If programmes that have been proven to work are used and are well funded -- and avoid competing messages -- then there is a real chance that the current generation of teenagers and children will enter adulthood having resisted the temptations of drugs.

That would be a major achievement, reducing demand and putting a profit squeeze on dealers who generally exploit the young and the weak.