An Opposition MP is calling for an investigation into the extent to which drug revenue is supporting Bermuda's households.

And a Royal Commission bringing the entire community together to explore the problems and the solutions may be the tool to do it. "I think we've got our heads in the sand," Shadow Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety Minister Maxwell Burgess(pictured) said yesterday. "This country has to look at the plight of the black male and deal with it, once and for all."

Mr. Burgess spoke in response to the Bermuda Omnibus survey, which found that 68 percent of residents ? the majority of them in the West End ? are concerned about youth violence. "I don't give any young person licence to run around with a machete, a gun ... whatever object to cause violence," he said. "But, having said that, we have got to ask where is it going wrong, and where are we steering them wrong?"

Examining the question of drug revenue supporting households will give adults greater moral authority to help steer young people down the right path, he added.

"Young people see their parents arguing at the dinner table night after night about how to make ends meet ? and they're working nine to five," he said. Then those same parents try to tell their children to grow up to be like them.

But "kids don't want that (life)," he said. "Then they meet a fella who tells them, I've got a business that will solve that problem."

Now mom and dad are sitting in the house with the lights off and the phone out, he said, and "little Johnny" comes in with enough money to turn the electricity on and hook up the phone line.

Once parents accept that money, he said, they lose any moral authority they might have had to tell their children to stay away from drugs.

"Who do we expect to tell them this is a bad thing if the parents are even more reliant on the money it brings?

"By our silence and inaction we have allowed the problem to grow. We will reap what we sow ? we cannot sow the seeds of corn and then start complaining because we don't get string beans."

A Royal Commission giving commissioners the powers of investigation to determine the extent of the problem, as well as other problems ? such as the percentage of Bermudians leaving the educational system "destined to fail" ? is needed, he said.

The Commission would also look at the disparities in wealth across the Island. "This isn't like in Jamaica where the haves are separated from the have-nots," he said.

In a country where prosperity is everywhere it is not good having half the population "smelling hell", he said.

It is also no good pointing out that even Bermuda's poor are well-off compared to the poor in some countries. "You judge yourself by the world you find yourself in."

The Royal Commission would help bring the community together to facilitate solutions. "There is no quick fix ... But we must deal with the root core problem if we want to be rid of these problems in the long-haul."

The pecking order in Bermuda has white males at the top, he said.

Then come white females, black females, "anybody else", and ? finally ? black males.

"And you have legitimate black males who are trying to do the best they can who simply aren't making it."