following the alcohol-related death of a college student. That debate centres around alcohol and drug education and the legal age limit for drinking.

Some years ago there was a great deal of talk in Bermuda aimed toward controlling drinking by young people. Those instigating the public debate now seem to have gone silent and not very much ever happened. In light of the experience in the United States we have to wonder if it will take a death to get people going again in Bermuda.

Bermuda's liquor licensing laws are very lax and largely out of date and in need of reform. Traditionally, we have retained the drinking age at 18 years on the basis that visitors would expect our laws to be similar to those in the US. In fact Bermuda is very lax at enforcing any law at all. Young people do drink on licensed premises under 18 and today we are even lax about opening and closing hours. It is not unusual for premises to stay open after closing time on the basis that they are having a "private party''.

Bermuda now has very few young visitors, especially since the demise of College Weeks and it is no longer true that visitors are used to 18 as a drinking age because the great majority of US states have raised the age to 21 years. We have also lost the military bases and thus the assumption that young servicepeople wanted to be able to drink at 18.

It is not an offence in Bermuda for young people to drink under the age of 18, even though it is an offence to serve them. They get around that by having older friends purchase the drinks and servers turn a blind eye. There seems also to be a notable lack of any attempt to make young people prove their age.

In Florida these days the drinking age is 21 but servers are required by law to ask for proof of age from anyone they judge to be under 30. That prevents the excuse: "They looked over 21.'' There was a move to train employees of drinking establishments in Bermuda in the Server Intervention Programme so that they knew when not to serve people and how to cut-off people who were drinking too much. That idea was foolishly abandoned and the drinking in moderation campaign was instituted. That now seems to have disappeared, leaving Bermuda with nothing.

We are not in any way prohibitionist but we think that sense should prevail.

Surely, licensed premises must take responsibility for people who leave their premises drunk and get into fights or cause driving accidents. Many states in the US now require that responsibility.

A Server Intervention Programme would at least encourage them to cut off people who are getting drunk. In Bermuda today it seems that you can stagger up to a bar at any age and get served. That is not a responsible way for a country to behave.

We think the National Drug Commission should take a hard look at the current liquor laws and a very hard look at the way liquor is now served in Bermuda.

That examination should include service to minors and consumption by minors and such things as cold take-out liquor from grocery and liquor stores which is illegally consumed in public. It should also look at enforcing opening and closing hours, the impact of liquor licences on their neighbourhoods and the association of alcohol with youth events and sporting events.