Page Three of last Tuesday's newspaper. One day staff at this newspaper should count just how many times similar headlines have been run over the past 30 years. Every time the warnings have been justified and well intended. Most of the time the warnings have gone unheeded.

Just about everyone must question why the warnings are still necessary. Why are drugs an epidemic in a place as controlled as Bermuda? How did drugs get out of hand? Why has so little been done despite studies and reports? Probably there are two real answers.

The first answer is the ongoing habit of this Government to commission reports and studies, as it did with Dr. David Archibald, but to see the reports themselves as an answer and take very little action. Or, if the reports are difficult or not exactly suited to the Minister involved or not to Government's political taste of the moment, to simply table the reports or drop them in a bottom drawer and do nothing. At times, some departments of Government are quite capable of actually obstructing reports. The latter was the case with the Ministry of Health and Dr. David Archibald's reports.

The second answer lies in a lack of public will, despite endless debates and discussions, to demand solutions, and a lack of public will to say, "Not in my house. Not in my neighbourhood. Not in my Country.'' Some of that lack of will springs from a natural public sympathy for addicts and a tendency today to paint addicts as victims of society and to excuse the addiction. Yet addiction often leads those addicted to increase the problem by pushing drugs.

But there is also a third element which has to do with the people who ignore the problem as not affecting "me or mine''. That means the drug menace can be left to someone else to solve or that people can satisfy themselves by complaining that the Police should "do something''. The truth is that drugs in a community affect every member of that community. Have you or a friend had your house broken into lately? It's probably because you have not done anything about drugs.

Recently the Commissioner of Police spoke of "zero tolerance'' of drugs in relation to posters he proposes having erected at points where visitors depart for Bermuda. The reality is that zero tolerance might be advantageous but we do not have it. Just about everyone knows of places where they are pretty certain drugs can be obtained. Do they tell the Police or call the hot line? Parents often talk about schools where they hear drugs are available. Do they call the Ministry? If you have a young adult in your house, thay always know, even if they are not users. Do you keep them away from those places? Many people tolerate other people they suspect of making drugs available. In more recent years, each and every one of us has seen "suspicious transactions'' go uninterrupted on the street. If we did nothing we are condoning drug abuses and we are certainly not supporting zero tolerance.