Since 1990 the Home Office Drugs Prevention Initiative has been piloting a community-based approach to drugs prevention. Twenty small local teams were set up to work with their communities, ensuring that they were properly informed, encouraged and supported in their resistance to drugs misuse. This report describes the evaluation of two drugs information lines set up in 1992, one by the drugs prevention teams in Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark and the other by the Newcastle team. The south London line was not a success, in terms of awareness or use. The report analyzes the possible reasons, and provides suggestions, particularly about publicizing such a service, which may be of interest to anyone considering setting up something similar. The north London effort was more successful in that more people had at least heard of the service. The Newcastle project operated with the advantage of well-resourced publicity and the cooperation of schools, shops and businesses in the local area. These factors, and the clear targeting of the project in terms of its scope (providing information about drugs, particularly rave drugs) helped to establish it and contributed to its greater success rate compared to the London projects. Tables, appendix