The paper concludes that drug courts: (1) have had success, but careful judgments must be made about acceptable failure rates; (2) are focused on treatment, rehabilitation and reduced recidivism; (3) are more intrusive for offenders than a conviction or short sentence; (4) are more expensive than traditional courts but, when taking the whole package (court, imprisonment, cost of reoffending), could be much cheaper; (5) face implementation challenges integrating criminal justice and treatment agencies, cooperative arrangements between judge, prosecutor and defense, and achieving objectives broader than those of the criminal justice system. Drug courts have been established in the United States and in the United Kingdom. However, transplanting policy from one country to another does not necessarily produce the same results. Any pilot projects in Australia will need to be adapted to local conditions and must be rigorously and objectively evaluated. Notes, figure, references