Drugs

How much do you know about drugs? I recently shadowed a junior doctor on a busy medical ward. Several patients were users, but the doctor seemed at a loss to know how to deal with these patients' problems. Everyone was relieved when the drug team worker arrived and suggested how best to manage them.

People who use drugs need to be aware of the risks that they take, but health professionals too need access to independent, high quality, and up to date information to be able to advise patients.

"Drugs are illegal; talking about them isn't," says www.talktofrank.com-and the approach is brutally frank. Although this site is primarily designed to offer advice to young people, it is a good starting point for health professionals. The A to Z of drugs is both comprehensive and informative; did you know amyl nitrate-"poppers"-burn the skin? The site also has a confidential email service (ask Frank); you are guaranteed a response to any question related to drugs within 24 hours.

Drugscope (www.drugscope.org.uk) claims to be the United Kingdom's leading independent centre of expertise on drugs. This site is different but equally impressive, aimed at professionals working in the field of drugs. The homepage is a little overwhelming, but the site provides comprehensive resources, including details of numerous publications and policy papers on issues related to drugs.

The colours at www.elisad.uni-bremen.de/startpage.php may make your head spin, but this pan-European project is superb. It has reviewed hundreds of drugs advice websites from 32 countries and given each a rating. You can search by country or category (for example-research, services, or policy). The site is a little difficult to navigate but well worth the effort.

If you are interested in sport, take a look at www.drugsinsport.net, which covers worldwide stories relating to doping scandals. This site is clear and unfussy site with links to newspaper articles and heavyweight reports, such as those about detection of the banded steroid nandrolone.

The World Health Organization's substance dependence site (www.who.int/substance_abuse) offers the sort of authoritative resource that you would expect from this international body. Accessible in English, French, and Spanish, the site gives details of the organisation's global activities in this area. The site covers alcohol and smoking as well as other drugs because the organization is not concerned with legal status, but with the negative impact of drugs on health. The site has everything from detailed epidemiological data to publications on the neuroscience behind dependence.