A STEP BACKWARDS

One of the more radical moves announced in Friday's Throne Speech was
the decision to merge the National Drugs Commission into the Ministry
of Health Family Services.

After saying that it was incumbent on Government to cause positive
change in the lives of those afflicted by drug and alcohol addiction
and praising the NDC's valuable role in "setting the direction of
Government's response to drug and alcohol abuse", the Throne Speech
added: "However, after careful review, it has been determined that
those who require services can be better assisted by the Ministry of
Health and Family Services who are now well placed to deliver a
holistic and comprehensive approach to prevention, counselling and
rehabilitation.

"The benefits of this approach are boundless and will allow those who
are trying to rebuild their lives the opportunity to take advantage of
the technical expertise, administrative experience and knowledge
offered by the Ministry. Accordingly, the National Drug Commission
will be incorporated into the Ministry of Health and Family Services."

This decision flies against all of the advice that successive
governments have been given on the issue.

Dr. David Archibald, who recommended the establishment of the National
Drugs Commission in 1991, intended that it should be an independent
and non-partisan organisation, composed of high calibre citizens,
representing different interests but who were non-political.

Only a non-political organisation, free from political pressure, could
build the kind of consensus and community effort needed to combat the
menace of drugs.

Now, the NDC is to be scrapped and subsumed into the Government
bureaucracy, answerable directly to politicians and, therefore, always
vulnerable to political pressure.

At the time of the NDC's formation, the then-Opposition PLP argued
that it was impossible for any group to be non-political, and to a
degree, it was right. But no one was suggesting that the NDC's
leadership should have no political views. What Dr. Archibald was
saying was that fighting drugs should be taken out of the political
sphere, with policy decisions should be based on sound research and
open-minded decision-making and should not be subject to the demands
of one political party or the other.

Only then would the general public buy into a strategy to reduce drug
abuse.

To be sure, the NDC has had its problems, beyond the sheer fact that
ending drug and alcohol addiction is hard work and even the best
counselling centres in the world have depressingly high failure rates.

And the NDC had trouble demonstrating that it was getting results from
its large budget. It was not as pro-active and publicly visible as it
should have been, and it failed to lay down sufficient standards and
accountability for the agencies it funded.

In large part because of the latter issue, it parted ways with the
Council Partners, which had raised roughly half of its budget from the
private sector. That was a tragedy for Bermuda.

But the problems were not insoluble; indeed, under a new chairman and
chief executive officer, the NDC seemed to be making some progress.

The question now is whether the Health Ministry will be able to carry
out the NDC's mandate. That is by no means certain: Government's own
report on quangos released earlier this year recommended that the NDC
remain autonomous.

And most of the reasons given by Health Minister Patrice Minors
yesterday to justify the move seemed to benefit the Ministry and not
the NDC.

While there is no doubt that there were overlaps and duplication
between the Ministry and the NDC, these could be solved through better
coordination, rather than an outright dissolution of the drugs agency,
which is what is likely to happen in the long-term.

And the message being sent out to the public is that the drugs scourge
is one of many health problems confronting the community rather than
an extreme problem that requires a top priority.

Cancer, heart disease diabetes and so on are health problems whose
severity cannot be discounted. But few would dispute that substance
abuse -- from tobacco to alcohol to illegal drugs -- stands alone in
its ability to wreak havoc not only on people's physical health, but
on the psyches of the addicts' families and the general community,
through lost productivity, crime and so on.

Substance abuse is a serious issue that requires a dedicated approach
if it is to be solved. Dissolving the NDC is a step backwards.