Considerable emphasis has been placed in Northern Ireland as elsewhere upon providing an estimate of the prevalence and patten of drug misuse, yet despite the importance of this information, a less than adequate picture has emerged. In this paper, divided into three sections, we attempt to layout and explore the assemblage of factors influencing drug misuse in Northern Ireland and subsequently our knowledge of it. In the first section we endeavor to demonstrate that drug use, distribution, and policy cannot be examined in isolation from the politics and practices of the protagonists to the conflict in Northern Ireland In the second we critically review existing data on drug misuse ranging from the various public health and law enforcement indicators through to the limited emprical research avaliable. The final section makes urgent calls for quality research in Northern Ireland that would be instrumental in influencing effective drug policy and practice.