A minister is to urge Bermuda?s new police commissioner to send undercover cops into nightclubs to deal with ?loose conduct?, including drug-taking and illicit video-making.

Wayne Perinchief, Minister of Drug Control, spoke out at a meeting last night in which details of a film depicting cavorting women exposing themselves in a nightclub emerged.

Mr. Perinchief was asked by a member of the public ? who asked not to be named ? what he and his Cabinet colleagues planned to do to stop the moral decay of the Island and restore spiritual values.

The woman said she had been told of a recent video ?made with young women exposing themselves ? that is being circulated in this community?.

She said the video had been filmed inside an Island nightclub.

Mr. Perinchief replied: ?I have heard of some instances in nightclubs where the behaviour is less than desirable. I have had reports, this is third party, that there has been even marijuana smoking in some clubs.

?There has been a certain level of loose conduct inside of clubs. You have probably heard some of the stories that I have heard.?

He said he had recently set up a steering committee to look at the drug problem and that he would be bringing the issue of conduct in nightclubs to the table.

He said he hoped the committee would agree to make a recommendation to new police commissioner George Jackson about undercover police operations.

?Years ago we used to encourage our undercover people to go into clubs, to go into bars. They have eyes and ears in these establishments? Mr Perinchief added. ?I believe that successive administrations of the police have frowned on policemen even going into these establishments. I will be encouraging the commissioner to put back that type of undercover surveillance.?

Earlier at the PLP meeting in Southampton East, Mr. Perinchief admitted not enough had been done in the past to deal with drug barons. He said: ?There are people who have made millions of dollars in this country. I believe that we have never really, as a government or as police, dealt effectively with what I call intelligence driven investigations.

?We haven?t really looked at people?s money ? where they bank, how they finance their residences, their houses, their cars, their estates.?

He said a police chief from the UK would be helping the Bermuda force to focus on this kind of investigation.

Mr. Perinchief also talked about tackling re-offending behaviour. He admitted criminals were not being rehabilitated in prison and so were being released only to offend again, but said plans were in place to change that. ?The recidivism rate in this country is close to 80 per cent of people returning to prison? he said. ?It?s because many of these people never get rehabilitated. It?s a revolving door. When they come out we want to put them in recovery homes so they are not so at risk.?

Mr. Perinchief also spoke again of the PLP?s support for mandatory drugs tests in the workplace and said companies would be encouraged to introduce them. ?We have got to change the whole paradigm of drug use,? he said. ?We believe we can rid this country of the problems that have been caused by drugs.?