And at least one top prison official has recommended that the Offenders Substance Abuse Programme (OSAP) should be made mandatory.

Acting Prisons Commissioner Hubert Dean told The Royal Gazette that when the programme began last autumn prisoners were eager to sign up and that for months the six-week course was over subscribed.

In fact, inmate and convicted armed robber Eugene Floyd Allen Anderson complained to Public Safety Minister Paula Cox in a letter in June that he had to wait four months to get into one of the OSAP groups.

But Mr. Dean this week revealed that the situation had now reversed and prison officers were finding it very difficult to persuade inmates to take the programme. One reason for the sudden about face, could be that prisoners have discovered they may be reprimanded if their urine samples test positive for drugs.

Regular urine samples are taken from inmates in OSAP. If drugs are detected, the inmate is placed in a special relapse prevention programme. But if testing thereafter proves positive, the inmate, according to Mr. Dean, "will face disciplinary action''.

"We have a zero tolerance in the prison system for drugs,'' he said. "And while I understand that it is a disease and they need help, after they are given that help, they have to play their part and be responsible.'' "They have to be held accountable for their actions,'' he continued.

"To really be effective the programme needs to have at least eight people in it,'' Mr. Dean noted. "But right now we are having difficulty getting those numbers.'' Mr. Dean revealed that one way of solving the problem has been to hold joint classes with Prison Farm inmates and female prisoners from the Co-ed Facility in St. George's.

"It would be very difficult otherwise for there to ever be sufficient numbers of female prisoners,'' he said.

Supportive of drug treatment in the prison system, Mr. Dean held that a flaw with the current programme is that it is not compulsory for all inmate drug addicts.

"It should be a mandatory programme,'' he said. "A lot have taken it, but many need to and will not.'' "A lot of inmates don't want a programme to stop them drug abusing. They like what they are doing.''