Preventative measures must be put in place to combat the resurgence of psychedelic drugs among Bermuda's youth, a drug counsellor has cautioned.

And she added parents must watch for signs of drug use more carefully than ever and be prepared to over-react, not under-react, if they wished to protect their children.

The warning came from Addiction Services counsellor Victoria Beecher after news that drugs such as LSD and MDMA -- the latter more commonly known as ecstasy -- were increasing in popularity around the Island.

She told The Royal Gazette that psychedelic drugs were thought of as "party drugs'' as "they don't numb feelings but enhance them'' and while not considered to be dangerous -- they could kill.

Their resurgence now, she continued, could be attributed to the focus of prevention on intravenous drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine in light of the AIDS epidemic.

Psychedelic drugs were not being focused upon as they were 30 years ago when they were widely used. So they have popped up again, she suggested.

She added Bermuda tended to follow US and UK trends where psychedelics had a huge re-emergence about five years ago.

And it was quite possible the drugs were becoming more prominent as they were associated with the sixties and seventies which were enjoying a return to fashion in the clothing and the mind-sets of young people.

She said if you were to paint a picture of what a typical, psychedelic drug user would look like, it would be someone in their mid-teens to early 20s, middle class, fairly well educated and from a financially comfortable family.

The drugs were mostly available through the summer months when such adolescents returned from their respective high schools and colleges -- some bringing the drug with them to pass out to their friends.

However, Mrs. Beecher stressed marijuana and alcohol were the two main drugs being used by children and were more popular because they were not thought of as "bad''.

One of the biggest problems associated with the use of marijuana and alcohol -- which were becoming increasingly more common among younger children -- was they neutralised their ability to reason and function.

She said this prevented them from learning their adolescent lessons such as how to resolve conflicts and deal with authority, which explained why kids were becoming more aggressive and Bermuda was seeing more violent crimes.

And if a long-time marijuana user started taking psychedelics, which cause emotional traits to become more pronounced, Mrs. Beecher explained, it would cause these aggressive traits to "mushroom out of proportion''.

Drugs were an incredible problem in Bermuda, especially among the youth, she said, and were "devastatingly difficult'' to treat because unless they suffered immediate consequences of drug abuse, adolescents were unlikely to seek treatment.

And their use was expanding through increased advertisement in the electronic media and the lack of censorship on recent movies which glamourised them.

Parents could not assume their kids were not taking drugs.

They had to watch for warning signs, which for psychedelic use included poor co-ordination, nausea, disorganised thinking, excitement or agitation, depression, euphoria, anxiety and odd eye movements.