Understanding and Responding to Drug Use - European Monitoring Centre for Drugs

This monograph is the product of the decision of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) to launch a project in 1996 to obtain a comprehensive overview of qualitative research on drugs in Europe. The opening section highlights the multiple roles of qualitative research in understanding and responding to drug use. Part II addresses the impact of qualitative research on policy-making. Part III provides examples of research conducted in European Union cities that has been specifically designed to identify and verify new trends in drug use. Part IV on risk behaviour demonstrates how qualitative research methods have made a considerable contribution to the knowledge and understanding of health risks associated with drug injecting. Subsequent sections consider the theme of social exclusion, drug markets, and drug services evaluation. The final section is given over to qualitative research on drug use within a global research agenda. It reveals the scale of qualitative drug research varies greatly between countries, that little is published in the drug-specific scientific journals and that high quality work often appears to fail to influence policy.