Research into residential rehabilitation programmes for drug users, with or without an integral detoxification, has been fraught with difficulties. Comparability between different programmes has been hard to establish; follow-up of residents who have left the programmes is difficult because of the relative instability of many drug users; and selection bias affects interpretation of the results. Nevertheless, the question remains for policy makers and referrers whether or not this intensive intervention is a valid treatment option. This paper reports the results from 13 months' intake of 138 drug users to a residential community.