To the neutral onlooker, it is getting hard to believe that anything connected with Bermuda's efforts to solve the drugs problem isn't broken.

The major Government body concerned with reducing drug abuse - the National Drugs Commission - seems to be rudderless and leaderless.

The major body funneling charitable donations to drug agencies - the Council Partners Charitable Trust - is about to lose most of its leadership.

The two bodies seem to be at complete odds over the direction of rehabilitation and prevention and who should lead the campaign and set the standards.

Many of the agencies on the ground seem to be suffering from the same kind of malaise, with Fair Havens in flux and Camp Spirit only just getting back on its feet. The Centre for Alcohol and Drug Abuse is in limbo.

Public awareness campaigns are lacklustre and unconvincing, when they are seen at all.

And it is almost impossible to tell if the Bermuda Assessment Referral Agency - the centrepiece of the Alternatives to Incarceration scheme - is working at all.

"The system is not whole. By definition it's in chaos. There is no system."

Those are the words of Henry Smith, the chairman of the Council Partners, and it would appear that he is correct.

To what extent the Council Partners itself is responsible for this is hard to tell.

As the major private funders of drug rehabilitation, it has the right and the responsibility to ensure that donors' money is being spent sensibly and that the groups it funds are getting results.

What is clear is that the charity and the NDC disagree on where Bermuda should go from here, with Government seemingly on a different track as well.

The additional burden put on the system by ATI - while admirable in and of itself - seems to be breaking an overworked system.

Turf wars and disagreements over policy are to be expected in any partnership. But when these differences threaten to derail the whole process, someone has to step in and put a stop to it.

But the real losers in this are not the organisations or the drug counsellors or the civil servants. The real losers are the substance abusers who are looking for help and cannot get it, or those who have so totally lost confidence in the system that they will not even try to get help.

David Archibald, who wrote not one, but two reports on how Bermuda should tackle the drugs crisis, said that if anywhere could solve the problem it was Bermuda.

And with $5 million a year being dedicated to the problem, it is not lack of resources that is the problem.

Mr. Smith, Health Minister Nelson Bascome and the incoming chairman of the NDC need to agree that the system has lost its way.

Many of the answers for getting back on track exist in Dr. Archibald's reports; all those who care about drugs should dust them off and find the answers they want.