Globalisation influences not only legitimate economic sectors, but also affects developments on the illicit drug market and the proportion of those in treatment who are members of minority ethnic populations. In a rapidly changing world, the need for information increases accordingly. Here, then, emerges an important task for science, especially in the light of the European endeavour for evidencebased drug policy. Recent years show an almost exponential increase in the use of online data collection and analysis in social drug research and, in some European countries faster than in others, research ethic committees have come to play an important role in social drug research.
The usual format of the European Society for Social Drug Research’s annual book is 8-10 chapters, but this year the choice has been made to incorporate a greater number of short contributions, in the form of 21 ‘snapshots’, written by social scientists working in 11 European countries.