ABSTRACT
The medical profession has experienced difficulty in defining its role in the management of drug misusers, both at an individual level and at a public health level. Doctors who have contact with drug misusers will have a range of goals which may include health promotion, harm minimisation and treatment or rehabilitation. For many drug users general practitioners are a key to early and easy access to care as they are for any other patient, and they remain central to the overall strategy of responding to drug misusers. In the mid-1980s and '90s there was a radical expansion of community based services run by both the statutory and voluntary sector supported in the mid-1980's by a central funding initiative from the Department of Health. Drug Dependency Units tend to be based in large urban areas and consist of outpatient facilities run by a psychiatrist; many have community drug teams attached to them.
