What was intended as a private message went out to the list, the news that an article would appear in volume 18 of SHAD (a continuation of SHAR) and that it probably would appear by the end of the northern hemisphere academic year. Allow me to accompany my apology for missending that private message to all of you with a brief update on the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the successor to the Social History of Alcohol. As interim editor I hope to get a 200-page "annual" issue to the printers by the end of this academic term (December 2004) and hope to see it in print by the end of what for me will be the next academic term (May 2005). Since it will be an "annual," I am not bothering with quickly outdated news. Nor do I plan a bibliographical section. There will be a "reflections" essay, many articles, a few short reports and the like, and numerous book reviews. If anybody owes a book review or a critique of an article, please hurry!