Introduction

The concept of evidence-based policy has become part of the common policy lexicon in the drug policy field too. Belgian drug policy makes an interesting case to examine the complexities of the science-policy nexus, although it neither encompasses a radical or trendsetting policy on the spectrum, nor has it undergone a number of significant changes recently. Belgian drug policy development between 1996 and 2003 is used as a critical case for looking at and discussing the mechanisms and processes through which policy is (not) informed by scientific knowledge, with a particular focus on the practices of public scholars and the roles of the media and interest groups. Over the past decades, drugs and drug use have shifted from marginal phenomena to a situation in which they are widely sampled and used. However, the tradition of research on the role and nature of evidence use in the context of drug policy is mainly situated in the UK and Australia.