The consultation discussed a draft report containing an analysis and summary of drug abuse in Europe compiled during a November 1989 consultation. Participants agreed to include information on methodological problems of data collection and epidemiological research in the introduction to the report. They also felt that the focus should be on trends within the countries and direction of change rather than between country comparison. The consultation made suggestions for improvements and proposals for refining the protocol to collect information for the 1993/1994 round. It also reviewed coordination with other initiatives at European and global levels to improve data collection on substance abuse. Within the WHO program on substance abuse, an abuse trends linkage alerting system (ATLAS) is being initiated to collect data in regional and international monitoring systems. Its emphasis will be health implications of substance abuse, and its goal will be to provide policy makers with current information for national planning in areas of substance abuse.