Drugwatch: Establishing the Practicality and Feasibility of Using Key Professionals and Illicit Drug Users to Identify Emerging Drug Tendencies

Abstract: The updated United Kingdom Anti-Drugs strategy highlights gaps in the current body of drug related knowledge. Although work has been addressing these gaps for a number of years now, it has proven challenging to establish the dynamics of emerging drug tendencies within local areas. Some work of this nature has been carried out within the UK, but these studies have been beset by problems. With this in mind the Drugs Analysis and Research Programme and Market and Opinion Research International (MORI) embarked on developmental work to assess whether a national project, involving progressive sweeps of interviews with key professionals and drug users, in ten areas of England and Wales, would help fill these gaps still further. Findings suggested that the overall process worked very well. Not only did the project prove feasible, but interviews were felt to have produced real time, policy relevant information. However, it was felt that the project was often resource hungry. Table of Content