Demolishing crack houses, weeding out the supply lines, busting cruise ship smuggling rings and waging war on the `Mr. Bigs'.

Drugs. They are such a talking point and so high on the political agenda that nobody in Bermuda can ignore their threat.

Bermuda is a land where the street values of cocaine, cannabis, crack and heroin can be four times as high as the selling prices in New York.

And the narcotics battle is fought in the House of Assembly -- as well as on the streets -- where the UBP and the PLP are ready to declare full-scale war on each other's approaches to the scourge of Bermuda.

According to Home Affairs Minister Maxwell Burgess, his opposite number in the PLP has shown a "disdain and a hatred'' for the work of the Bermuda Police Service.

According to Alex Scott, the entire United Bermuda Party is too close to the drugs trade, with their big business backers often unwittingly caught up in the organised crime link between the US and Bermuda.

"The most important factor contributing to the drugs problem in Bermuda is the economics,'' says Mr. Scott. "It's big business. It's probably grossing the same kind of numbers that some of our banks and insurance companies handle.

"That's why those who traffic are prepared to take the risks. It's multi-million dollars. And that's why we have to find the money launderers.

"There are new laws to attack the assets of those involved. I don't think there had been one case brought before the courts.

"Their money goes into banks, deposit companies and legal offices. Drugs come into the docks through containers.

"We shouldn't fall victim to the prejudice that it's just the boys on the walls who perpetuate this trade.

"That's why we in the PLP can follow leads where the UBP cannot follow leads.

They are the party of the establishment. PLP supporters don't own deposit companies and banks or big container lines.

"This doesn't mean UBP supporters or members are involved, but their operations may be inadvertently caught up in the trade or trafficking of drugs, without them even knowing it.

"The Progressive Labour Party does not have a vested interest. It is better-equipped to go after the Mr. Bigs.'' Another strand in Mr. Scott's argument is that the Police, suffering low morale through dead-end leads, would no longer have inhibitions about going after the drug lords under a PLP Government.

One way of keeping the force fresh would be to constantly rotate narcotics officers, he says.

The Warwick East candidate claims new UBP measures, like introducing a drugs court among other initiatives from the National Drug Commission, are "welcome but late''.

"Drugs have become entrenched in the last 20 years while the UBP has been in power,'' Mr. Scott says. "They are guilty of neglect or benign neglect.'' One way of righting that wrong, for Mr. Scott, is to start a National Youth Service, with clubs joining together to form a united stand against drugs.

Another could be to form a civilian committee to help Police identify the barons, with an appointed drug czar to help cut the arteries of the supply lines.

On the other side of the great political divide is Maxwell Burgess. Here is a man who will not take anything Mr. Scott has to say lying down.

When he responds to Mr. Scott's arguments, he paces up and down his office, branding his points as electioneering "which I will not stomach''.

He insists Police officers are already rotated throughout the narcotics squad.

He says the drugs court is being worked on "as we speak''. He reels off a list of other initiatives now being put into place to continue the war on drugs.

And he recalls the recent operation to smash the cruise ship smuggling ring between New York and Bermuda, saying up to 50 percent of Bermuda's drugs supply has now been cut out.

Then he turns to Mr. Scott. "Politics is politics,'' says the Minister.

"Trying to win an election is trying to win an election.

"But deliberately trying to mislead the people is something which I will not stomach.

"I will not tolerate it and I would urge the voters of Warwick East in particular and Bermuda at large to distance themselves from that man and those with whom he associates.

"What we do know is that the Police Service would have no morale -- not low morale -- if that man were allowed to be the Minister responsible for them.'' He remembers the cruise ship drug busts, the arrest of a Bermudian in New York and another recently-smashed ring in South America with possible ties to Bermuda.

The Island's Police have been networking intelligence with overseas forces, he adds.

"Does that sound like a Police Service that's not committed to finding Mr.

Big? "No. But Mr. Scott's hatred for them, the disdain with which he insists on treating them, will have him continue to try to encourage the view that nothing's being done.'' He points to the crack house demolitions to prove that the UBP Government is making sure there are "no safe havens'' for drug dealers.

Mr. Burgess adds that state-of-the-art scanning equipment, detecting up to a billionth of a gram of drugs, are now being used by Customs, Police and the Prison Service.

And he insists the UBP offers a "balanced approach'' to the drugs menace, saying a youth council is already being considered, along with a determination to improve values and morals in a "back to basics'' campaign.

It's the PLP who would oversee a "flooding in'' of drugs, he claims. Their idea for a drug czar is "dangerous''.

But both sides do at least agree on one thing: that drugs themselves present Bermuda with desperate dangers -- and must be wiped out.