The Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse sponsored an Internet workshop to introduce Bermuda to useful information on alcohol and drug services.

Betty Hanacek, of Metropolitan Atlanta Council on Alcohol & Drugs (MACAD), was brought to the Island in order to show CADA how the Internet could be used to refer Bermudians to useful information concerning drug and alcohol abuse.

The workshop, which ended on Saturday, was sponsored by Renaissance Reinsurance Ltd. and held at the company's offices on East Broadway.

Gordon Johnson, Executive Director of CADA, said MACAD was chosen as a practice model and as resource for prevention services.

"We can learn a lot from groups like the Council (MACAD) who may be two to five years ahead of us,'' Mr. Johnson said.

Mrs. Hanacek and her company help nearly 300,000 people in the Atlanta area who need information on a daily basis.

And Mr. Johnson said the questions they received were similar to questions locals may have, only with a Bermuda twist.

"Someone may come in asking for information on alcohol, then if they become more comfortable they may say, `I want to find out if my husband has a problem with alcohol','' he explained.

Mr. Johnson said plans for international websites to be set up from Bermuda were also in the pipeline.

Mrs. Hanacek, director of Information Dissemination at MACAD, said the focus of the workshop was to show how information from all over the world can be accessed by a simple touch of a button on the Internet.

"When you are in a place like Bermuda and you need information from the US it may take a month for them to get it to you, not to mention the cost,'' she noted. "The Internet is a fast and inexpensive way to find the information you need.''