POLICE BLITZES AND JAIL TERMS WILL NEVER END DRUG SCOURGE

A recovered heroin addict who went on to found a US drug
rehabilitation centre said Bermuda would never defeat the scourge
through Police crackdowns and imprisonment.

Israel Cason told a Bermudians Against Narcotics rally a possible
solution was to get recovering junkies to help existing addicts.

"People always say experts need to do it but may I remind you that
experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch."

More than 120 people defied looming rain clouds to gather at St.
George's square for the rally.

Mr. Cason, who founded the Baltimore "I can't, We can" programme, said
addiction affected people from all walks of life, not just people on
"skid row".

"I came from a good family, my mother was a preacher and my father was
a deacon," he said. "In my neighbourhood there were 'exciting' people
and I decided I wanted to be a hustler. I had no knowledge of what the
lifestyle was but I thought it looked more exciting than being a preacher."

"I was a heroin addict for 30 years. Despite that I managed to
maintain a business and family. I owned my house. I thought I was fine
and didn't realise that instant gratification would bring lifelong
pain.The disease is progressive and chronic. It comes on so slow you
can adapt to it and don't realise it has happened."

"In the end the same drug I took to kill the pain became the very
thing that caused the pain. It's a vicious cycle. I wound up sleeping
in my car in a parking lot for the last two years of my addiction.

"Pain is a universal motivator. It motivates you to change you
lifestyle or continue getting worse. I needed to feel that pain before
I realised I had to change my lifestyle."

Minister of Drug Control, Wayne Perinchief, spoke later at the rally
and said that Mr. Cason's message about pain was pertinent to Bermuda.

"In Bermuda we never allow the pain to get too much that they have to
leave. Mothers enable their sons to be weak, tough love is needed on
this Island.

"Brother Cason brought that message home to me. I know how hard it can
be. I had a son who used drugs and caused me so much pain I didn't
know if I wanted him alive or dead sometimes. But we need to stop
enabling our sons and allow them to reach the pain that will motivate
them."

Saafir Rabb, another "I can't, We can" official, said the Baltimore
programme had helped 9,000 addicts since 1997, 6,750 of whom have
remained clean and sober.

He said the programme was spiritually based and looked to change the
lifestyle of addicts. Another aim was to remove the desire to
associate with drugs.

A main feature of the programme was empowering addicts to help each
other. And another key to its success was self sufficiency. There was
no reliance on Government grants.

"The programme is unique in that it is not set up to be a burden on
society or the government," he said. "It is set up to be self
sustaining, we set up businesses that provide revenue to fund the
recovery programme."

Mr. Rabb said that the organisation had come to help BAN in anyway
possible and hoped that a similar programme could be established on
the Island.

Mr. Cason said it was important to realise that recovery takes a
holistic approach.

"Recovery and sobriety are two very different things," he said. "After
I went to rehab with a cousin I came out and realised everyone that I
had hung around with was still a junkie. If I didn't change the people
around me I would have been drawn back in."

"I had to change my lifestyle, morals and belief. Each phase involves
difficulties. Change equals stress, but in the difficulties is the
ease it does get better. If we endure the pain the rewards are great."

Mr. Cason also said the drug problem on the Island had reached an
alarming rate and needed to be properly addressed.

"Bermuda needs to realise it will only get worse if we don't do
something. We cannot Police our way out. We cannot incarcerate our way
out. We've tried that and all we end up with are more prisons The
solution is in the problem, we get recovering addicts to help out
current addicts. People always say experts need to do it but may I
remind you that experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch."