In the past, the prototypes for characterizing drug use were heroin and cocaine, so that research has focused on possible commonalities between any substance and these drugs. Addiction controversies explores the problems of the commonalities approach by looking at dissimilarities as well. The first chapters of Addiction Controversies trace the development of modern medical attitudes to drug use and the current controversy over its decriminalization. The second set of chapters examines the extent to which drugs have common biological and sociological mechanisms of action and contrasts these explanations. The final chapters consider the extent to which the desires for different substances are the same and the biological and social explanations of relapse. Clinicians, researchers and students in all areas of substance use will be stimulated by these challenges to current thinking and will enjoy the comparative approach that is taken by the contributors to Addiction Controversies.

Drugspeak, A.Dally; the natural history of heroin addiction, A.J.Yates'; heroin, cocaine, and now nicotine, D.M.Warburton; psychopharmacological aspects of psychoactive substances, I.Hindmarch; all substance use pleasures are not the same, D.M.Warburton; alcohol - a positive enhancer of pleasurable expectancies?, G.Lowe; a neuroelectric approach to the assessment of psychoactivity in comparative substance use, V.J.Knott; the psychopharmacological and neurochemical consequences of chronic nicotine administration, D.J.K.Balfour; drug-induced conditioned behaviour - novel motivational effect of morphine in rats, R.C.Kumar et al; drug addiction as a psychobiological process, M.A.Bozarth; cocaine and mesoaccumbens dopamine neurotransmission, F.J.White; physical dependence on alcohol and other sedatives, R.B.Holman; the comparative effects of nicotine with other substances - a focus on brain dopamine systems, M.E.M. Benwell; discriminative propertie sof drugs of abuse, D.Clark; heroin and cocaine - new technologies, new problems, J.Strong; desires for cocaine, P.D.A. Cohen; cognitions and desire, R.Hodgson; compulsion, craving and conflict, M.Gossop; craving for cigarettes and psychoactive drugs, R.West and H.J.Kranzler; heuristics or cognitive deficits - how should we characterize smokers decision making?, F.P. McKenna; social cognition and comparative substance use, R.Eiser; life stress and the use of illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco - empirical findings, methodological problems and attributions, J.B.Davies; coping, social support and drinking amongst young married couples, J.A.Robertson; controversies in substance use research, D.M.Warburton.