Strang et al's message (BJGP June)1 that between 1985 and 2001 there has been an almost threefold increase in the number of GPs seeing opiate users is indeed good news.
Sadly, however, their report on the 2001 national survey of GPs in England and Wales makes no mention of the significant improvements made in the last 4 years, thus leaving the reader with a rather negative view of what we consider to be a quantum leap forward in the field of substance misuse.
That half of the GP responders in 2001 had seen an opiate misuser in the preceding 4 weeks and half of those had prescribed opiate substitution therapies, shows how mainstream this work had already become. But …