The work was piling up. Deadlines came and went and the assignments still were not finished. The mind was overwhelmed and frustration and escape became the only real options for a man who could no longer "cut it" or be relied on to do his part. The only reliable companion was the one he poured in generous amounts from a bottle. The consequences didn't matter anymore. The line was crossed and the commitment made.

Those around him put a convenient label on him, and after a while he adopted the label himself: He was an alcoholic, a hopeless drunk. The label was more powerful and accurate than anyone could have imagined. Indeed, he was a hopeless drunk.

In another instance, all she wanted was acceptance by those around her, to fill a gaping hole inside her soul. She did everything to get attention. Sometimes she was provocative and shocked those around her by her lack of personal boundaries. She would often say outrageous things, to the dismay and shock of those who heard her. In time, friends withdrew from her because she was too unpredictable and outrageous. She began to be frozen out of her circle of friends and family.

Before she knew it, she was in another place - a place of loneliness, isolation and pain. She wanted only to be accepted by others, she reasoned to herself. She was forced to make other friends and, before long, she was shooting up with others who wanted to escape their own loss and alienation from others. She had found a convenient place, a place where she was accepted and where she belonged even though she had to also accept the demons that danced in her veins as she travelled on that constellation called "Oblivion".

He could not remember when it was that he started to steal things to maintain his drug habit. It started in a small way, stealing clothes, jewellery and sometimes even food. He got good at stealing, and after a while he even believed it was okay to steal because "they wouldn't miss it". They had enough for themselves and they deserved to be ripped off. Getting caught didn't worry him. He was too smart for that and, if the truth was known, it really didn't matter to him because getting high was the only important thing in his life. In almost no time, he was involved with a group of others who joined his exploits and they found mutual acceptance and protection in their small group.

There are so many stories to be told about those who become ensnared in alcohol and substance abuse. Even in this Information Age, we struggle to understand why people seek solace and escape in drugs. The easy explanations are that individuals either have some kind of biological predisposition towards chemical dependency, or that they surround themselves with people who take drugs and learn drug addiction through association.

I will leave that discussion to those who work on the front lines of drug treatment and intervention. What I can say, however, is that drug taking is devastating and damaging to both the drug takers and to the community as a whole.

My remarks are directed at the devastation of illicit drugs in our community. I am aware that there are individuals who abuse prescription medication, over-the-counter medication and alcohol. Alcohol, especially, has a long and ungracious history of abuse in our community. Most of us can recount stories of relatives and friends who have disgraced or destroyed themselves and their families as a result of abusing alcohol.

The importation of illegal drugs into our country is a story we all know something about as well. Sometimes there are news stories about successful drug interdiction by our police or custom services. It often boggles the mind when we consider both the actual size of the drug seizures and the street value. Yet we all know that for every drug shipment we intercept, there are many others that get into our country undetected.

We watch in great despair the damage and the loss of our people who are ensnared in drugs. We can only guess at the extent of the manpower hours lost in our Bermuda work places as a direct result of those who take drugs. Drugs hurt Bermuda. Drugs destroy Bermudians and Bermudian families. Drugs blemish the international image of Bermuda as a special place.

We believe that the government has a critical and essential role to play in this regard. First the government, like other progressive governments in the world, must mount a vigorous and vigilant programme of interdiction and prosecution of those who import drugs. The government must make it clear to the public and the international community that drugs are not welcome in Bermuda and that it will treat severely those who challenge this position.

We believe that the greater good for the people of Bermuda and our right to security in our own homeland requires heightened surveillance for illicit drugs in our community.

So far, the current government has not taken any type of decisive steps to protect Bermuda's interests against the importation of illicit drugs. They have secured no agreements that enable us to extradite drug smugglers from other places back to their countries of origin. They have launched no public education programmes in our schools to alert our youth about the consequences of getting involved with drugs.

The current government appears to be indifferent in this regard. This appearance of indifference has led to many of our citizens to questioning how seriously this current government views the ravages of drugs on individuals, on the Bermuda family, on the Bermuda workplace and on our image abroad. Consistent with its apparent indifference with matters of drug interdiction and prosecution, this current government has a lamentable public record on its commitment to drug treatment in Bermuda. As a result of its indifference and detachment, drug treatment services in Bermuda have fallen into neglect and closure during the watch of this current government.

The National Drug Commission, the primary government treatment and education agency, has been largely neglected and its role has been poorly defined by this current government.

Until recently the senior positions at the Commission had not even been filled. Relationships between the government and the various drug treatment agencies in the community have stalled at best and, at worst, have completely broken down.

This has had devastating implications on the ability of the various agencies to offer a suitable range of drug treatment to those in need. It appears that the current Government has failed to understand the link between drugs and much of the community crime that disrupts our lives.

If they did understand this connection, they would have done more to demonstrate commitment to drug interdiction and prosecution, to public education in our community and in our schools on drugs, and to the development and maintenance of adequate drug treatment services.

The Alternative To Incarceration (ATI) initiative, which has been much hailed by this current Government, has not been supported with drug treatment resources for offenders. This intervention tool has considerable potential, but I hope that it will not be overwhelmed by the indifference of the current Government. I have purposively used the word "hope" because what is really at stake is "HOPE". The drug addict has fallen into the sinkhole of hopelessness.

The members of the community who have had their homes broken into by addicts needing money, suffer their own loss of hope that they will be safe in their own homes. I have been told that approximately twelve Bermuda homes are broken into every day. In the meantime, the current Government fails to provide decisive community leadership to address and to redress this growing problem. By simple default, the current Government unwittingly cooperates with the drug addicts by doing nothing but being intoxicated with indifference.

This situation is not good enough. The people of Bermuda deserve better "treatment" by the Government that was elected to serve them. The great African-American novelist James Baldwin once said: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." It is time for the people of Bermuda to have a Government that cares about the quality of their lives and that takes meaningful measures to ensure that everyone is recognised as having value and worth to the community.

After all, the community does not exist for the express purpose of serving the needs of those in Government. Indeed, I believe that the reverse is a proper understanding of the role of government. In this regard, therefore, the intoxication of indifference by the current Government is at least as devastating to the community at large as those who seek escape and fantasy in illicit drug intoxication. A change must come. Hope must be restored.

Neville Darrell is a United Bermuda Party Senator