Martin Donoghoe is a student in the Department of Applied Social Studies in the Polytechnic of North London.

Nicholas Dorn, PhD, is Assistant Director (Research) at the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence (ISDD), London. He is author of Alcohol, Youth and the State and of several works with Nigel South and others and is a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme.

Betsy Ettorre, PhD, is a Research Associate in the Department of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is author of Lesbians, Women and Society and has conducted studies at the Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London University.

Christine James is a Research Officer at ISDD where she is working on community responses and youth-work practice in relation to drugs. Previously she worked in community work and has studied sociology and health education.

Stephen Jones is a student in the Department of Applied Social Studies in the Polytechnic of North London. During 1986 he and Martin Donoghoe were placement students at ISDD.

Susanne MacGregor, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College. She is author of Politics and Poverty and a co-author of Dealing with Drug Misuse and is directing a major study of the government's Central Funding Initiative on services for drug users.

Geoffrey Pearson is Professor of Social Work at Middlesex Polytechnic. He is author of The Deviant Imagination and Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears and recently conducted a study of heroin in the north of England.

Jane Ribbens is a postgraduate student in the Department of Sociology at Essex University. She was formerly a Research Officer at ISDD and co-author of a short book, Coping with a Nightmare: Family feelings about long term drug use.

Gerry Stimson, PhD, is Principal Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College , University of London. He is author of numerous publications on drug problems including Heroin and Behaviour and (with Edna Oppenheimer) Heroin Addiction; Treatment and Control in Britain.

Nigel South, PhD, is a Research Officer at ISDD. He is co-author with Nicholas Dorn of Message in a Bottle and of Helping Drug Users and is author of Policing for Profit: Private Security in Britain.