The Institute for Social Drug Research (ISD) was founded in 2002. The ISD is part of the Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law of the Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University. The ISD is first of all a research group that wants to play a prominent part in the social scientific collection and transfer of knowledge regarding different aspects of the use of drugs, drug trafficking and drug policies. The term 'drugs' refers to all psycho-active substances regardless of theirlegal status. The ISD is explicitly directed at the social scientific perspective and looks upon the use of pleasurable substances and drugs as an expression of normal human behaviour that takes shape in a contextual and social frame. The starting point of the ISD is not the classic criminal, penal or medical frame of interpretation because these perspectives (criminologisation and pathologisation) result too often in shortcoming conclusions and shortcoming methods of research.